


One For the Ages

by formosus_iniquis



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Immortality, Multi, Stop Aging Until You Meet Your Soulmate AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-27
Updated: 2016-08-12
Packaged: 2018-07-18 16:41:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 26,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7322905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/formosus_iniquis/pseuds/formosus_iniquis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world where you stop aging until you meet your fated, Gavin had stopped earlier than he was supposed to. He didn't know what it meant, if there was wrong with him, but he was ready to wait as long as he had to for whoever he was destined to be with.</p><p>Gavin wasn't ready to stop a second and third time. But the universe had a plan and Gavin could wait forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

When the stop first began no one knew what to do.

It happened suddenly in towns and villages across the world, kids who spent years without aging past their late teens. The people in those villages who continued to age reacted, well they reacted as well as expected, with fear and anger. No one really liked to talk about all of those that were lost at the stake in those early years.

Time passed the way it always did, those older generations died out and the ones that escaped the fires stayed young.

The answer started as a rumor, whispered about but not quite believed. Not until more people started to meet their fated and they aged like normal again. Some only had to wait weeks and some were waiting decades.

There there was Gavin.

Gavin who was hugging his knees as he hid behind crates and barrels on a ship in the middle of the bloody ocean. Gavin who was fleeing his home and heading to the newly liberated colonies. Gone were the days where children were burned at the stake for their stop, but Gavin hadn’t aged a day since he turned sixteen and he was starting to worry they were going to start warming the fires just for him.

The looks he got as he walked around his hometown had lessened once he didn’t have people comparing him to Dan anymore. Gavin had been slight compared to his friend his entire life, and it only got worse when Gavin stopped early. Dan’s enlistment in the Royal Militia meant he wasn’t there to be used as a measuring stick for Gavin’s oddity. It didn’t stop the looks entirely, he didn’t think they ever would.

So he did the only thing he could think of, he left. Left for the only place that he thought wouldn’t know he stopped early. Gavin only hoped they weren’t still minged about that war.

It was maybe something he should have thought about before. Before he was hiding behind a bunch of boxes on a merchant ship he’d stowed away on. He didn’t know what he was going to do when he landed in the colonies, New Jersey if he believed what he’d overheard from the crew -- something else he maybe should have thought about before -- but anything had to be better than what he was leaving behind.

He was sure he could figure out something to do when he got there, pick up a craft as someone’s apprentice or something. If he could manage to get off the ship and onto dry land that is. Gavin wasn’t sure what exactly people did with stowaways but he knew he’d be pegged as on right away. You couldn’t help but hire the Stopped but places like the shipyard usually employed the strong and strapping type.

He should have spent his nearly sixty days at sea coming up with a way to sneak off the ship, and the closer they got to land the more thought he put into it. Gavin had still only come up with half of a plan by the time they were docking.

He waited until he couldn’t hear the sounds of the crew moving around above him anymore and grabbed the smallest crate he could. His plan in its entirety was to carry it off the ship and hope no one noticed he didn’t belong.

Gavin looked around the top deck with nervous darting eyes as he checked for someone who would know he didn’t belong. When he didn’t see anyone or hear any shouting to stop him he picked his crate and walked down the gangway to land and his new home for the foreseeable future.

He went as far as the end of the dock before setting down his ticket off the ship. Gavin left the crate on the side of the road, it was someone else’s problem now. He was ready to disappear among the people in the shopping district, a glance over his shoulder let him watch a few of the men he recognized from the ship go back aboard for their next load. Gavin straightened up, a cocky smile on his face, his half a plan had been successful and he was ready to walk away.

“One of these things is not like the others,” said a voice from just over his shoulder.

Gavin yelped, smile falling from his face as he spun around to see who had seen him. He found himself under the scrutiny of a tired looking man watching him with a smirk, eyes noticeably looking between Gavin and the ship he’d just walked off of.

“Piss off,” Gavin said. The man was obviously stopped, tall and gangly with a young face and features he hadn’t grown into, but an aged look in his eyes.

“Stealing or stowaway?” the man asked, looking Gavin up and down like he could figure out the answer on his own. “Look a little young to be running away for your fated.”

“Well what do you know,” Gavin snapped, not appreciating this stranger trying to figure him out.

“I know if you’re stealing, you’re stealing from my shop,” he said, menacing voice a drastic change from the teasing he’d been doing earlier. Gavin felt his blood run cold at the sight of a weapon that he hadn’t noticed before.

“St-stowaway,” Gavin answered. “I stowed away, had to get away from home.”

The man smiled, shifting from threatening back to relaxed in a blink. “Well in that case, I’m Geoff,” he jerked his thumb back over his shoulder toward a sign that read Geoff’s Farming and Mercantile before he stuck out a hand. Gavin took it, fascinated by the markings he could now see on Geoff’s arm that were too symmetrical to be natural.

“You know anyone in this town, bud?” Geoff asked.

Gavin glared, suspicious of this man he didn’t know who was jumping between threatening him and being friendly. “No,” Gavin said, unable to keep himself from being honest despite his distrust. “What’s it to you?”

Geoff raised his hands in surrender, a gesture made less sincere by the smug smile on his face. “You look like you’re twelve and your accent could get you into trouble. You stowed away on a ship bringing my shit so excuse me for feeling a little fucking responsible for you.”

Gavin hadn’t noticed the difference in their voices until it was mentioned, too worried about what Geoff was going to do with him to think about what he sounded like. Now the difference seemed obvious, he couldn’t believe what two decades of separation could cause that sort of change. “Where are you from? Why’s your voice like that?”

“I don’t even know your name kid, and you’re asking me where  _ I’m  _ from?” Geoff asked, voice tinged by amusement rather than patriotic outrage.

“Well yeah, you’re from England and this is what we’re supposed to sound like.”

“Wrong,” Geoff said, “I was born here, shit like that is gonna get your ass kicked around here.”

“Are you lot still upset about that war, we hardly even fought before we let you go.” Gavin asked, a little worried that one of his fears of moving to the young country was about to be actualized.

Geoff met his gaze with wide eyes, “That’s it, I’m taking you in before someone literally murders you for saying that kind of shit.” Geoff said. He grabbed ahold of Gavin’s arm and spun him toward the shop without another word.

“Wot?” Gavin managed to ask as he was pushed into the building.

“You can earn your keep working in the store,” Geoff said, “I’ll never be able to live with myself if I let you get yourself killed.”

“Get myself killed, what are you on about?” Gavin was feeling more and more confused. He couldn’t say he wasn’t glad that it seemed he’d already found a job, maybe even a place to live, but his life being potentially on the line again had him concerned.

“A history lesson,” Geoff said, ignoring Gavin’s question in a way that would soon become very familiar, “we can start with that.”


	2. Chapter 2

Gavin found it didn’t take long for him to develop a connection with Geoff. Gavin stayed at the mercantile for a couple decades and Geoff treated him like a younger brother or a son.

Geoff was protective of Gavin in a way that even his parents and Dan hadn’t been. Glaring down customers who looked at Gavin and his apparent youth strangely and relentlessly trying to set Gavin up with anyone who was unbonded and showed him any interest. Geoff knew Gavin better than anyone else.

They tended to share the most after they had been drinking.

“I’m from Alabama,” Geoff said during one of those nights. They had been living together for years but even after many of these heart to hearts the two didn’t like to talk about what had brought them to Geoff’s little shop. “It’s a territory west of Georgia that’s just now starting its drunken staggering toward statehood.”

Gavin nodded, he didn’t really know where Geoff was talking about even though it’d been covered in his America lessons but he wanted to encourage the sharing.

“I left for a lot of reasons,” he continued his voice quiet with a weighty sadness to it and Gavin knew those reasons might come out or they might not, but it wasn’t a conversation for tonight. “Don’t remember why I picked Jersey of all places, but I just wanted to move to a real fucking city.”

“Do you think your fated is here?” Gavin asked in a voice just as quiet, the seriousness of the conversation seemed to bring it out in both of them.

Geoff grinned, a twitch at the corner of his lips that screamed of how weary he was of thinking about the subject. “Been here a long time Gavvers and I haven’t found them yet.” His fingers brushed those tattoos on his arm, “I get one every ten years I go without finding them.”

“Where do you get them?” Gavin asked perking up in his chair now that he was finally voicing a curiosity he’d had since meeting Geoff.

“Part of me taking you in as my own means not telling you that,” Geoff said before smirking, “‘sides you’d just end up losing whatever limb you got tattooed to infection.”

“Piss off, you’re not my dad.”

Geoff’s small laugh killed the last of the remaining tension in the room. “I am now, what’s on your mind, son.”

“I stopped early, got no idea why or what it means,” Gavin said. He couldn’t believe that even with as close as he and Geoff had gotten over their years together that he was sharing this. Gavin had expected to keep it a secret from everyone but his fated, if he even had one.

“Is that why you came here?”

Gavin shrugged, “Just seemed like the place to go.”

They sat in silence for a minute, the two of them nursing their drinks.

“I don’t even know if I have a fated,” Gavin said, finding it easier to voice his secret fear in the dark they were drinking in. “What if stopping early means something’s wrong?”

Gavin looked down at his hands, it was easier than seeing how Geoff would react to him being broken. He was startled by the feeling of a hand clapping down on his shoulder. “That’s weird as dicks, dude, but I’m sure there’s a reason.”

Gavin looked up and saw a strange mix of emotions on Geoff’s face. He didn’t know what Geoff was thinking but he felt comforted, Geoff wasn’t going to turn him out even if he didn’t have much to add to Gavin’s years of theorizing.

They didn’t talk about it again. Even as Geoff got more insistent about setting him up with every unbounded person they met.

It isn’t long before Gavin knows he has to leave.

Gavin  had lived with Geoff for a long time and he clearly wasn’t going to meet his fated while working the cash drawer at Geoff’s Farming and Mercantile. He gathered the money he’d saved while working in a bag alongside what Geoff had shoved in his hands while calling him a dumbass. They both pretended they couldn’t tell that Geoff was a little misty eyed when he demanded Gavin keep in touch.

Much like when he first came to America, Gavin didn’t have a plan when he left Geoff. He went west toward all that new land, but made it as far as the mountains before he realized that he was much better suited to life in the city.

He made it back to civilization in time for the World’s Fair. New York was filled with the latest tech marvels and not for the first time Gavin was awed by how much progress he’d seen in his time alive.

The camera was his favorite.

It made him want to see what changes had been made in his old home.

Gavin’s last day in America was the same as the last day of the World's Fair. It made it easy to convince himself to spend a large amount of the money he had left on a camera.

Gavin found it was surprisingly easy to keep money in his pocket using his camera. Once he got back to England he found it impossible to settle anywhere when he still thought it America as home, it was easier to wander from city to city. He snapped pictures of things he found interesting, selling them to whoever would buy them.

He always kept the best ones for himself. His fated never far from his mind when he tucked his newly developed pictures into his bag.

The press always paid the most for his pictures, and Gavin always asked for more from them than people he met in his travels. So Gavin made a point of keeping his eyes on the headlines so he knew what would sell.

It had him glad he wasn’t in America anymore when he saw they had started a Civil War.

Geoff was the first person he thought of, worried for his friend whose country was at war, their contact had been sporadic since Gavin had gotten to England. When he heard the war had started he wrote to Geoff immediately wanting to make sure his old friend was okay.

He stayed put long enough to hear that Geoff was okay. Read that he’d gotten bored with New Jersey and with shop keeping around the start of the war. That he’d joined Matthew Brady and his photo-developing caravan and it kept him out of the danger of the fighting.

The letter ended with a demand that Gavin return to the states as soon as the war ended and Gavin thought he might. He was beginning to feel a clawing need to move and was feeling drawn back to his old home. He wondered if it was his body’s way of drawing him to his fated, of telling him he was in the wrong place. A romantic though, one he liked a lot, but he thought it was probably just his wanderlust acting up again.

Being effectively immortal made time seem less than real. Gavin had lived through weeks that passed like years and years that were gone in moments. 

He continued to wander, continued to spend most of his money on his camera, and continued to not make any efforts to return to America.

When it occurred to him that he should make good on his promise to Geoff the war in the States was long over and Gavin was in the middle of what seemed to be a slow news year. His time alive had taught him that something was brewing on the horizon, he just didn’t know how long he’d have to wait for that. 

The urge to moe was a constant cloying feeling in the back of his mind these days and it was getting harder to ignore.

There weren’t any merchant ships to stowaway on anymore, he’d looked, so he had to find a new way over. Gavin was ready to settle down in the next town he came to, a town that should be his old hometown if it was still there, and start working in a shop like Geoff’s.

Gavin had been wary about returning, afraid that the small village he had fled so many years ago wouldn’t exist anymore. But found himself surprised by the town still standing. Gavin barely had enough time to be impressed by how his old town had grown before someone had grabbed ahold of his arm. He hadn’t been worried about coming back to town, not until he felt that hand close around his arm. He couldn’t help but wonder if there was anyone would still be around who wanted him dead before.

He was relieved to find that the person who’d grabbed his arm was Dan.

All he could do was stare at the man, surprised, but thrilled that the man was still alive and unbounded.

Dan looked just as thrilled when he spun Gavin around, he’d be willing to bet Dan had stopped him before being sure of who he was. “B, you don’t look like you’ve aged since we were sixteen.”

“I haven't seen you in a century and that’s the first thing you say,” Gavin asked exasperation tinging his voice.

“Sorry, B,” Dan said. Gavin was amazed how someone who could snap him in half could manage to look so contrite. “I really missed you.”

A smile split his face, “Missed you too, B.” There was a bittersweet sort of happiness at seeing his friend again, but Gavin couldn’t help but keep his smile.

“You here for long,” Dan asked, “we can catch up.”

Dan had a place he’d been staying while he was in town, something Gavin was glad for when it took so long for them to catch up. It ended up taking days to cover the years that they’d been apart.

Gavin was complaining about not being able to get home when Dan had a serious look cross his face. Shifting under his stare Gavin kept talking about his plan to get back, wondering if Dan could even hear him over the sound of his own thinking.

“I’ve seen some of your pictures, B, you’re really good,” Dan interrupted. Gavin jumped a little bit, surprised that Dan had heard him just say that he’d been thinking about giving it up for something more reliable.

Gavin didn’t even pretend to hide his smile, he had no problem admitting his pride in his work or talking a compliment for it. “Thanks, Dan.”

Dan nodded, and for a second Gavin wasn’t sure if that’s all he wanted to do. He wouldn’t claim to be an expert on what Dan was thinking, not after so much time apart, but the statement and Dan’s early staring had felt leading.

“Been doin’ some work with the Royal Guard,” Dan said. It was enough for Gavin to think that maybe it had been nothing but a compliment.

“That’s top, B, workin’ with Queen Victoria.”

Dan smiled too, probably pleased by the compliment of his work. “She’s bein’ crowned empress in a few months, it’d be brilliant if you could take a couple pictures.”

Gavin felt his jaw drop. His body reacting naturally to news his brain was working on understanding. “Wait, what?”

Dan opened his mouth, ready to repeat what he’d just said, but Gavin’s mind was already miles away. Photographing Queen Victoria was a career making opportunity, and while Gavin didn’t really  _ need  _ to make his career turning down a job offer from the Queen seemed treasonous.

“Yes, what, yes of course I’m gonna do it,” Gavin said, his agreement couldn’t spill from his lips fast enough as he cut off Dan’s repeated explanation of what he needed.

Dan seemed relieved, slumping down in his seat across from Gavin like a weight had been taken from him. “That’s great to hear B, was worried you’d need some time to decide and this is my last day in town.” Dan perked up again like he had just realized Gavin had agreed to go, “But now we can leave and meet up with the rest of the travelling party, it’s gonna be a long trip.”


	3. Chapter 3

Gavin didn’t stay in India long.

Dan had been right when he said the trip would be long, and while Gavin had appreciated the opportunity to make up lost time with one of his oldest friends he also appreciated when the time had finally come for him to do his job.

So he left India as quickly as he could after the coronation, his whole body practically thrumming at the idea that he could now go back to America. His excitement about returning was almost matched by his excitement over what let him return, his loyalist British heart still fluttered at the thought that he got personal permission from  _ Queen Victoria  _ to sell his pictures of the coronation.

When he was trying to decide where in America he was going back to, Gavin found himself back in Jersey after leaving India. He’d lost contact with Geoff sometime between the end of the war and his trip with Dan and he had no clue where in the much larger country his friend could be. Jersey just seemed to draw Gavin back in. He didn’t know if Geoff would have gone back to his old town after the war, or even if he would still be there after it took Gavin so long to make it back, but Gavin couldn’t think of going anywhere else.

And it was a city he was familiar with.

Familiar enough that he didn’t have a problem wandering around the city on his own after he got settled.

Familiar enough that he kept walking around the city after he found a newsie selling the paper his photo was in as he slowly started leafing through the pages.

Gavin had been a little upset that he didn’t get to see his picture on the front page. She wasn’t their Queen anymore, Geoff had had some very choice things to say about the monarchy when he was giving Gavin his America lessons, but she was still a bloody queen for christ sake. The farther he got into his paper the less concerned he grew with getting a feel for the way the city had grown and changed since he’d been gone. He just couldn’t believe that a country that had come from a monarchy would stick their old figurehead being crowned  _ empress _ on the page across from a bloody dog show.

What the hell even was a dog show anyway? They were everywhere, how did you just show a dog? Was there something special about the dogs that got to be in the show, and did other dogs know that there was something special about them?

Gavin was so blinded by his thoughts, and more literally blinded by newsprint, that he didn’t hear, let alone see, the newsie in front of him until he was tripping over top of him.

The warm feeling of skin being torn by pavement as blood welled up to the surface and the sound of paper scattering across the sidewalk broke him from his rapidly spiraling train of thought.

Gavin rolled off of his torn knees to sit on the sun warmed pavement as he tried to figure out where exactly he’d wandered to and how he had gotten there. He had tripped over something when he hadn’t been paying attention to where he was going, he thought it had had more weight to it than the papers that he watched catch the breeze and skim a little farther from him. An angry looking face poked into his field of vision just as Gavin was starting to wonder if what he had tripped over was actually behind him.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” the person he’d tripped over asked. Gavin had spent a long time away from America and since coming back he had been struck by how different people sounded now, the accent hard to hear through. It seemed to make the man seem even angrier as he shouted at Gavin.

Well not really a man, he physically didn’t look much older than Gavin, but he of all people knew that it was no real indication of how old someone actually was. Still, Gavin would be willing to bet the man was at most sixteen; but the reddish-brown curls poking out from under his newsboy cap and the freckles Gavin could see littering his cheeks through an angry flush had Gavin wondering if that wasn’t a generous estimate.

Fingers were snapped angrily in front of his face and Gavin focused again on the kid who seemed even angrier now that Gavin had spent so long staring at him. “Hey, asshole, I’m fucking talking to you. How the fuck did you bury that big ass nose of yours in that paper so far that you couldn’t fucking see me?”

He was ranting and Gavin was struggling to keep his thoughts on what the kid was saying. Part of it was the trouble Gavin was having hearing him through the accent; but mostly, he was just trying to keep from laughing. He couldn’t help it, it was like watching a puppy bark so furiously that it was bouncing. Not at all threatening, but super adorable. He had a feeling that whoever this kid was he wouldn’t appreciate the comparison, or Gavin laughing in his face because of it.

Gavin could feel himself making that funny looking smile he got when he was trying to hold back a laugh, and from the way the kid was glaring at him as he yelled he could tell to. 

So he tried to think of other things.

Like how this kid seemed to carry a lot of anger for someone who hadn’t stopped yet. Which had him pausing for a second as his train of thought took a sharp turn down a different track. Afterall Gavin had stopped early and while it wasn’t the norm - and by not the norm he really meant he was the only one he’d ever heard of it happening to - but if Gavin had stopped early then there had to be someone else like him. His fated who would let him age again, that he was meant to be with. Wouldn’t it stand to reason that they would have the same condition he did?

“Are you a real kid?” he asked.

The yelling stopped and the guy stared at him like Gavin had spoken a different language. “What the fuck are you talking about? Did you hit your head or something?” Gavin was amazed by how quickly the rage fell away, almost like it wasn’t even real.

“No,” Gavin said, though he  _ was  _ still sitting on the ground and should probably get up at some point. He didn’t want to move, he was scared it would scare the kid off, and Gavin had something he wanted to know before that. “How old are you?”

He wouldn’t look at Gavin, got down on the ground instead and started to straighten the papers that Gavin had knocked over in his fall.

Gavin hadn’t met anyone who was hesitant to share their age. Whether they were sharing how long they had until their stop or they were sharing how long they’d been stopped. Even Gavin, who had spent a very long time worried that his premature stop would result in getting burned in the middle of his hometown, didn’t have a problem telling people how long he’d been alive and letting them make their own assumptions.

It seemed to add merit to his theory that this kid was like him. That this strange draw he felt toward this person he’d only just met wasn’t only in his head, it had a reason. That whoever he was he was like Gavin, he’d stopped early. 

Cause wouldn’t he know when he saw his fated that they were meant to be?

Gavin wasn’t sure if this feeling was just in his head, the kid was making a point of not looking at him or answering.

Gavin huffed, loud and he was sure that this newsie heard it. That was fine, he didn’t need an answer. He could understand that maybe the guy was a little minged off that Gavin had knocked him and all of his papers to the ground and then sat instead of offering to help pick them up. Gavin had been alive too long to do much of anything that was an inconvenience to him, and that included picking up a stranger’s newspapers when it was just as easy for them to do it.

Gavin sighed again before he started to pick himself off the ground, since it was clear that the kid wasn’t going to offer a hand. He had decided that he was just fine to go on his way, strange feeling of connection or not Gavin wasn’t sure he’d miss the loud mouthed newsie, until he couldn’t find his paper.

A thought he had apparently voiced out loud as the kid finally said something to him again. “What are you talking about, idiot, there’s a whole stack of them that you just watched  _ me _ pick up. I’ll give you one for free if I never have to look at you again.”

“But that’s not  _ my  _ paper, I need a certain one.”

The guy sighed, his ever present glare still in place. “What the fuck is so important about this fucking paper?” He looked at Gavin for a full minute like he could figure out the answer himself before finally offering Gavin a hand to help him off the ground.

Gavin’s breath caught in his throat as their hands met. The feeling of aging caught him like a punch to the gut, it stole the breath from his lungs and left him with an ache he couldn’t explain. Just a second of skin to skin contact with this kid - whose name he should probably learn - and Gavin could feel that creep of time slipping by him again.

The feeling of his fingers being crushed in this stranger’s, his fated’s, hands as his grip tightened wasn’t what Gavin expected. The newsie had made it no secret that he wasn’t fond of Gavin after their initial meeting, and after that first tick of time passing them both by he expected the kid to drop his hand and run. Instead he kept Gavin’s hand still in an iron grip as a pink blush dusted his cheeks and made those freckles Gavin had noticed earlier even clearer.

He wasn’t sure what happened now.

Gavin’s experience with people who had met their soulmates was almost as limited as his experience in relationships, which made it nearly nonexistent.

He thought a name would be a good place to start. “Gavin Free, and you are?”

He would have stuck out his hand to make the introduction more clear, but the newsie still had ahold of it. Instead Gavin used his free hand to push himself off the ground where he was still sitting, careful not to pull  on the hand his fated still had ahold of out of fear he’d pull the kid down on top of him.

“Michael Jones,” the kid, Michael, said. He dropped Gavin’s hand like it had burned him or like he’d just realized how long he’d been holding it.

“Michael,” Gavin repeated, relishing the feeling of the name of his fated rolling of his tongue. The man Gavin hoped he would be spending the rest of his life with.

Gavin had never worried about who his fated would be, they were his fated and he’d always mostly trusted the universe to decide who he was destined to be with. It didn’t hurt that Michael was adorable. But he knew that there were people that would spend their lives aging slowly and bitterly and entirely on their own because of some prejudice they had about who their fated was. It was something Gavin couldn’t understand, how bigotry could exist in a world where actual miracles happened, but people who wanted to ignore fate for whatever reason deserved whatever unhappiness that left them with. 

Gavin just really hoped Michael wasn’t going to be one of those people, as he continued to stare at Gavin with some kind of disbelief on his face.

“Are you sure you didn’t hit your head?” Michael asked again, looking at Gavin with a new found concern.

“Positive, Michael boi!” Gavin was feeling a little giddy from all the attention he was getting from his fated, and also maybe a little from the unfamiliar feeling of his body aging again.

“Then what the fuck is wrong with you?” Michael asked even as he tried to sound annoyed he couldn’t keep a smile from breaking across his face, Gavin could have squealed at the sight of that cute little dimple. “It’s not like it’s a hard name to say, fuck even those bratty Irish kids manage to say it right, so what’s your problem?”

Gavin couldn’t help but laugh, he was going to have a lot of fun with Michael, and he was going to start by annoying the shit out of him. That’s not a nice thing to say, Michael,” he said, managing to mangle his name almost beyond recognition and cackling at the string of swears it pulled from his fated.

Yes, he was going to have a lot of fun with Michael Jones.


	4. Chapter 4

Gavin clicked with Michael on a level he’d never felt before, which he figured was about right since they were fated.

They spent their first night together talking and Gavin found he could tell Michael anything that came to his mind.

They talked about what it was like when they stopped early, that fear that there might be something wrong with you that couldn’t be shared with anyone else. Gavin learned how self-deprecating Michael could sound when he laughed at how he couldn’t even hide his stop, not when he held onto that last bit of baby fat in his cheeks that his brothers lost before their stop. He told Michael about how he almost didn’t come to Jersey, how he’d been torn between heading west where Geoff had mentioned wanting to go or starting there and had picked there.

Michael’s fist connecting with his shoulder hadn’t been the reaction Gavin had expected, him mocking Gavin’s cries of pain were a little more so. “You’re the asshole Geoff wouldn’t shut up about.”

Gavin gaped, but Michael was on a roll and ignored him. “Geoff sold papers for like two months before he fucked off and he spent half the time I was with him talking about some annoying British fuck that was like his goddamn son, and it’s fucking you.” Michael sounded more amused than annoyed, and Gavin was starting to think that was just how Michael was.

Gavin was mostly just amazed that of all the people he could have met in his time in America he found two that knew each other.

They stayed in Jersey for a while. Neither really wanted to leave the place that they’d met and Michael had never been far from home before. They had connections there, New Jersey was safe in its familiarity. Gavin was comfortable in his bond, but leaving the home he’d found there would mean taking a step he never had before.

After two years together, Gavin felt the quiet grip of his stop happening again.

After being alive so long Gavin had almost lost count of the years, he could feel the way the bottom dropped out of his stomach as it happened. The way he felt physically ill. Gavin had always thought in the back of his mind that he was a little bit broken, but now the universe had screwed him over again. Michael was just so perfect that it hurt Gavin to think that they might no longer be bonded. That Gavin could have done something that the universe changed its mind that they belonged together. 

He had always wanted to meet his fated, had imagined it for as long as he could remember; but now that he had stopped again he had to admit that that there was another part of him that had been afraid to. Afraid at what meeting his fated and falling in love could mean. Afraid at letting someone else see everything that was wrong with him.

So he did what he was best at in situations like this: he pretended it didn't exist.

Afterall, he had no idea what had happened to cause this. He’d never heard of something like this happening before - he ignored the part of him that always whispered that he’d never heard of someone stopping early like he had either.

As long as Michael didn’t mention it Gavin decided he wouldn’t either.

Michael brought it up. Brought it up as he stared out the window over Gavin’s shoulder as they went through their usual lazy morning routine.

“Are we ever going to talk about this? Cause I can’t keep fucking ignoring it.”

“Talk about what Michael?”

“This!” Michael gestured roughly between the two of them. Quick, violent movements that he usually only used after he’d gotten himself really worked up. “The fact that we haven’t gotten any older in like ten fucking years, Gav, c’mon.”

“Well what do you want to say, Michael? I don’t know why this has happened again, I don’t know if we’re going to be stuck like this forever, and I don’t know what talking about it is going to do.” Gavin wasn’t a shouter, not the way Michael was, but he’d perfected the cold voice that could stop a conversation in its tracks.

Michael let it go.

He let them sit in tense silence for a minute. Gavin trying to push back feelings he didn’t want to deal with while Michael sat beside him, letting him cool down.

“I think I know a guy who could know something,” Michael said softly, floating the idea to Gavin like he might blow up again.

He didn’t. He may be upset, but it wasn’t with Michael or really anyone. It was that fear of not knowing, that fear that something was wrong and they would never really know it or be able to fix it. But he couldn’t keep ignoring the problem forever - well, Gavin could and would it was Michael who would never be able to.

Gavin’s lack of answer was a yes to Michael’s ears. He grabbed Gavin by the hand and started to drag him out of their apartment and down the street, because this was someone they had to meet right now.

He dragged Gavin all the way to the wealthy side of town. The side of town you stared wistfully at even when you were reasonably well off like they were with his photography and Michael’s work at Edison’s power station. This was the kind of wealth people dreamed about, real wealth. Coal money, railroad money, you and your children would never work again money; and Michael had Gavin by the hand as he walked in like he could even afford the ground they were walking on.

Gavin tried digging his heels in, if he’d thought he wanted to meet whoever Michael’s friend was he was starting to change his mind. 

Michael just kept dragging him along, turning  to walk backwards now so he could face Gavin. “Ryan’s a huge nerd, can be a little creepy, but he’s like the oldest fucker I know. If anyone’s gonna know what’s wrong it’s him.” Michael stopped for a second, a stutter in his stride as he looked Gavin over like they hadn’t lived together for the last decade, “He’s either gonna love you or try to kill you, but there’s fucking  _ no _ in between so don’t, fuck, don’t antagonize him.”

That wasn't as comforting as Gavin thought Michael meant it to. He let Michael drag him through the neighborhood anyway, cause while he trusted Michael his boi had a flair for the dramatic. Michael led them up to one of the smaller looking homes, still big enough to all of Michael and Gavin’s apartment inside and still have room left, but it looked almost impoverished compared to the homes around it.

Gavin half expected a butler to greet them at a door, to usher them into a sitting room where they would wait for the master of the house. Michael banging roughly on the door and shouting Ryan so that the volume and his accent separated the name into two syllables was not what he expected.

A young blond answered the door, glaring at Michael before pushing the door even farther and letting them in. “What do you want, Michael?”

Michael dragged Gavin through the open door and into Ryan’s home, he flopped down on the first horizontal surface he found and brought Gavin down with him. “We need your help, Ry-bread you’re the smartest guy I know,” Michael said after he made himself comfortable.

Ryan rolled his eyes, but a goodnatured spirit shown through. He had yet to meet his fated, that much was clear. His stop, though the same in physical years, looked much older than Gavin and Michael’s with waves of sandy blond hair and bright blue eyes that shone with time far beyond what he’d physically aged. 

“I’m the oldest fucking person you know,” he said, and Gavin was starting to think that was a major understatement.

“It’s the same fucking thing,” Michael said with that shit eating grin of his.

“Who’s your friend,” he asked looking Gavin up and down with clear interest.

“Keep your eyes to your fucking self, Haywood, he’s mine,” Gavin shivered at the territorial snap of Michael’s voice and the arm that wrapped around him and pulled him closer to Michael’s side.

Ryan just hummed, amusement tinging his everything as he said, “Thought you looked older, what do you need from me then? I wasn’t invited to the wedding, or I would’ve sent a gift.”

“We’ve stopped again.”

“Stopped,” Ryan asked, confusion drawing his features tight as he tried to connect a string of ideas. “You mean you aged a few years and then stopped again.”

“Yeah that’s what stopped fucking means, Ryan.”

“Do you want my help or not?” Ryan asked.

“Please Ryan,” Gavin pleaded. Now that he had even a hope that someone could figure out the problem he didn’t think he could stand Michael getting them kicked out now.

“Now that’s how you ask,” Ryan teased, “guess we know which one of you is the  _ better  _ half.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Michael said but even he was smiling at the gentle ribbing.

“Like I was saying before,” Ryan continued, “I think i might know what your problem is. I haven’t seen this exactly, but something similar a long time ago either before working with Vlad or before studying with Machiavelli.”

“Vlad,” Gavin asked, hoping he hid his nervous tremor.

“The Impaler,” Ryan answered, like there was any other one or like he couldn’t see the way Gavin’s stomach dropped through the floor. Michael hadn’t been kidding about the creepy thing.

“Machiavelli?”

“Really wasn’t as bad as everyone thinks. The Prince got a shitty translation, it’s really more sarcastic than people think, really it’s just because he-”

“Get to the point, Ryan,” Michael interrupted.

“I was an advisor to a group of royalty, soulmates, they’d all aged to their normal stop and they all had the same strange mark on their arms. It took a while before they found each other, but they didn’t start aging until they were all together.”

“Soulmate _ s,  _ with an s?” Michael asked.

Ryan shrugged, “Unless you know another pluralization.”

At least that’s the word Gavin was pretty sure Ryan was trying to say, it came out garbled and flubbed. He tried not to laugh, not when he was certain Ryan could kill him  if he really wanted to. Gavin couldn’t help it though, the harder he tried to hold back his laughter the more small giggles slipped past, and Ryan - the same man who knew Vlad the Impaler and Machiavelli - blushed at someone noticing his flub.

“But we don’t have any strange birthmarks and we didn’t stop the right time, at least not the first time.” Michael barrelled on. Gavin thought Michael would be laughing right along with him, but now that he’d fixated he wasn’t going to let it go until he got an answer.

“I haven’t done a lot of research,” Ryan said, more deliberately now that Gavin had laughed at him for flubbing his words. “I would guess that it’s the same as the kings, polyamory.”

“Polyamory,” Michael repeated.

“Why haven’t we heard about this before,” Gavin asked, not sure if he should believe what Ryan was saying even if he hadn’t heard of anyone in a situation like his and Michael’s before.

Ryan shrugged, “It could show up differently for people, people might not know it exists.”

“So why is our stopping all fucked up,” Michael asked.

Ryan shrugged again and Gavin could feel Michael getting fidgety and annoyed beside him at the lack of solid answers. “The Kings were all born within the same five years, maybe your stop is off because the fated you’re waiting on hasn’t been born yet.”


	5. Chapter 5

It wasn’t long after Ryan dropped that bit of information on them that Michael decided he wanted to leave.

Gavin came back from a meeting with one of the local papers to find their apartment in chaos with Michael in the eye of the storm. Half of their furniture was gone and Gavin could see bags packed in a corner.

He wouldn’t have been able to deny Michael anything on a good day, but with the manic glint in Michael’s eye and their things already in boxes it was even harder to say no. Maybe Michael’s nervous pacing was the cause, but Gavin had to agree that something about the idea of staying in the city made his skin crawl.

The money they made selling everything that wasn’t a necessity gave them enough to just leave.

Michael was worryingly eager to throw himself at and into everything they came to. A joking dare to ride down Niagara Falls in a barrell became a sincere attempt at talking him out of testing the limits of their immortality. Gavin didn’t really want to think about what would happen to any other fated they had if Michael did something stupid enough to get himself killed, they all knew what happened to people with one fated who lost them before they met.

He practiced the art of distraction. As they bounced across North America he would pose stupid dares or ask stupid questions in the hopes that it would trigger Michael’s loud and reckless laugh and not his loud and reckless behaviour. The food dares were the most fun, Michael’s expressive face made Gavin wish he could get ahold of one of the new movie cameras so he could record it, but that didn’t mean Michael didn’t come up with stupid ideas all on his own.

They had started hitchhiking toward Texas.

That was Michael’s idea - not his stupid one but his idea. He said he felt like he was crawling out of his own skin and the thought of going south was the only thing that made him feel a little bit of peace.

Gavin had to agree, he could feel that same deep growing need to move that he’d felt so many times before and Texas seemed as good a place to head as any.

Neither of them could drive, so walking there was their best and only option. It gave Michael plenty of time to come up with stupid things to do, like bet Gavin he could jump over every car that passed them on the road.

“I’m telling you I can clear the car Gav, it’s not even moving that fast.”

“Michael, no,” Gavi said, sigh plain in his voice because he knew Michael would try if the idea wasn’t shot down immediately.

Michael frowned, muttered something Gavin couldn’t quite make out about not having any faith in him, but he stayed on the side of the road with Gavin instead of moving out in front of the car. Michael stuck out a thumb and started trying to get the attention of the truck driving toward them now instead; hitchhiking was the fastest way to get to new places and they had discovered Michael was the best at getting people to pick them up. Gavin just hoped they were heading into a nearby town, someplace where he and Michael could settle down for a little while. They were getting close to the middle of the state and Gavin could feel that pulsing need to move starting to die down.

Michael was bouncing beside Gavin now as the truck got closer, waving a hand to grab the driver’s attention. The pickup rolled up beside them, window down, the vehicle’s driver turned and talking to whoever was sitting beside him.

“You boys need a ride some- Gavin fucking Free!”

Gavin had been standing behind Michael and hadn’t bothered to do more than glance at their soon to be ride until he heard his name.

“Geoffrey!” Gavin shouted, he would have jumped into the man’s arms if Geoff weren’t blocked by the truck door.

Gavin hadn’t been able to find a trace of Geoff during his time back in America. He couldn’t believe how little Geoff had changed in all that time Gavin had been gone, except for the tattoos that covered even more of his arms.

“And Michael Jones,” Geoff said, “how am I not surprised you two pains in my ass found each other.”

“Geoff, you’re the one that wouldn’t shut up about Gavvy,” Michael said, easily falling back into the habit of teasing a man he hadn’t seen in who knows how many years.

Geoff smiled at the two, happiness at seeing them again written in bold letters across his face. “You look old as shit, Gav, don’t tell me you two are bonded?”

“And you just look like shite, so same’s before.”

“Missed you kid,” Geoff said a smile splitting his face, “both you kids. Michael you been putting up with his shit for long?”

“You don’t know the half of it, Geoffy,” Michael said as he gave Gavin’s hand a squeeze. Gavin doubted Michael even knew he was doing it, he tended to be very tactile and it happened often enough that Gavin wasn’t even sure when Michael had taken his hand in the first place.

A second head leaned past Geoff to look at the two of them, “Are we giving these two a ride or what? Burnie’s gonna bitch about taking from the stock again if we’re late.”

“Calm the fuck down, Gus, we’re like five minutes away.” Geoff said to the other man, “Let me guess you two fucks don’t have a job or anywhere to stay down here.”

“Gav’s got his camera, it’s been enough for us this far,” Michael said with a shrug; and it had, the money they had made off of selling all their things hadn't lasted the two of them long. Gavin had easily fallen back on old habits to keep them fed, clothed, and in a bed when they couldn’t sleep under the stars. But Michael had said more than once on their long walk down to Texas that he wanted to do something different, wanted to try to get into radio to use his voice for something other than just being loud. He wasn’t the only one looking for a change.

“How is this worse than when I caught you climbing out of that boat,” Geoff asked, the question clearly rhetorical though it didn’t stop Gavin’s blush. He hadn’t told Michael that whole story and knew that Geoff was going to embarrass the hell out of him in a way that only a close friend or pseudo-parent could. “Get in the back of the truck, you’re coming with us.”

It turned out that the stock Gus had been so worried about being accused of stealing from was bootleg liquor.

“Strongest fucking moonshine you can get that wasn’t made in a bathtub out in CousinFuck, Kentucky,” Geoff told them as he handed Michael the bottle of dangerously clear alcohol.

“Why are you  _ making  _ bevs when you can buy them easier,” Gavin asked. He was already starting to feel how strong the drink Geoff had given him was, and he hadn’t had much of it.

“Burnie is getting out ahead of the curve, we’re headed toward prohibition, and we’re gonna make a killing selling booze to people who think the new laws are stupid. Already making a killing shipping to Kansas.”

“Are you serious,” Michael said laughing, he’d had a lot of that moonshine and Gavin was not looking forward to when it actually hit him, Michael got fighty when he got drunk. “That’s what you’ve been doing down here?”

“Cockbite Liquors is an institution that’ll last until the Prohibition starts and ends, or until we get bored and move onto the next big thing.” Geoff said with the smile of a man who was a glass ahead of everyone else. “Business is booming, if you two assholes want in, I can convince Burns to hire you.”

“Nah,” Michael said stretching out the word as he leaned against Gavin to look at Geoff. “Gonna hit it big on the radio Geoffy.”

Gavin thought about Geoff’s offer for a little longer than Michael, let Geoff’s playful teasing of Michael’s drunken claim wash over him along with Michael’s long familiar drunken pouting. Much like the last time Gavin had showed up in unfamiliar land without a plan Geoff was offering to help him out, sure he had photography to fall back on but Gavin had been doing it a long time and was starting to get bored.

“I’ll do it,” Gavin declared, startling the other two. “The job, if Burnie will take me I’ll do it.”

Geoff gave him a pleased nod but any comment he might have made about taking Gavin in was lost as Michael draped himself even farther across Gavin. “I’ll support us, Grabbin, while you’re being a criminal with Geoff. I’ll make it big and you’ll keep us bevved.”

The prohibition hit a few years later, just like Burnie had predicted.

Gavin was having a good time working with Burnie’s small crew of bootleggers - and the easy access to booze didn’t hurt things. Geoff kept him away from the area they made it in, leaving that job to Joel and Jack, the two had tried to teach him but he never got the hang of it. Gus let him know in no uncertain terms how important it was that they didn’t fuck up a batch just so he could get the hang of it.

Gavin was better at selling the stuff anyway. Though he resented it when the guys said it was because he drove anyone that met him to drink.

It mostly just meant that he drove around with Burnie. Convincing people of how easy it was to make a little money breaking the law and convincing the ones that were already that Cockbite Liquors were the ones they should be breaking the law with.

The only thing Gavin didn’t love was how often he was gone from home.

He felt like he spent more time leaving Austin than he did in the city. The only silver lining that he could still hear Michael’s voice once a day when he was out of town. Just like he had promised Geoff, Michael had made it on the radio and Gavin always tried to tune in to whatever drama he was acting in that day.

Burnie also predicted the Prohibition not lasting long.

As it seemed to be drawing closer and closer to an end Gavin got to stay home more often. It didn’t take as many people to convince barkeeps to fill their bars with booze as it had to convince them to put illegal speakeasies in the backs of their businesses in the first place.

It meant Gavin was at home fiddling with an old camera when Michael burst through the door with a crazed look on his face.

“Lindsay Tuggey is coming over to help me prepare for an audition.” Michael’s eyes were bright with a manic energy and Gavin was sure he should know why that name sounded so familiar. Or why it was so important to Michael.

“Alright love, I’ll be on my best behavior,” he said, not sure if that was even what Michael wanted to hear.

“Just get out the fucking booze, Free,” Michael said as he bounced around their home like a man possessed.

“What’s got you in such a tiff, Michael,” Gavin asked as he went to grab the booze from the top cabinet he’d put it on after Michael had indulged a bit too much in the strong batch that Geoff had gifted them.

“I’m not in a fucking tiff, how fucking long have you been in this country and you can’t speak fucking English.” Michael had moved to the kitchen now and started what looked like dinner. Gavin was sure that he was lying now, Michael had to stay busy when he was nervous and that usually meant cooking.

“That was English you spaff, c’mon Michael you can tell me if you’ve got a crush on this girl. If you can’t tell your soulmate about a crush, who can you.”

“It’s not a crush,” Michael grumbled like he thought he could fool Gavin and even if he could his blush gave him away. “Lindsay Tuggey is the biggest name in voice acting in the state, and she offered to help  _ me  _ get ready for an audition.”

“How’d you even meet this bird?” he asked. He was gonna get every bit of information he could out of Michael before she got here so he knew what to expect when she arrived - like if he was going to have to win over his fated from a girl he didn’t even know.

“I ran into her outside the booth, knocked the script out of her hands, and she laughed when I said she should watch where the fuck she’s going. She said something I don’t remember, probably called me an ass. When I realized who she was I asked what part she was going out for.”

“You didn’t realize it was her before you yelled in her face?”

“She’s a fucking voice actress, no I didn’t know who she was until after she said something.”

“She fit?” Gavin asked hoping he was sly enough that the question would slip passed Michael’s radar.

“Are you gonna get jealous if I say yes?”

Gavin knew Michael was teasing, but he couldn’t help the twinge of something when he heard that. Too many years of being conditioned to think that there was only one person for everyone, had left him easily jealous and afraid of anything deeper than platonic love. Even though Gavin knew objectively that they were waiting for at least one more person they were fated to be with it didn’t stop that stab of jealousy.

Michael could see it too. “Gav, boi, c’mon. She’s pretty, but she’s not you. You’ll like her too, promise, and hopefully she’ll like you since I warned her about you.”

Whatever feelings of jealousy he still had were immediately washed away by indignation, “Warned her about  _ me _ , what the hell for?”

“Cause you're kind of an asshole,” Michael said, “a loveable asshole, but ya know she doesn’t know you like I do.”

It wasn’t anything Michael hadn’t said before so Gavin made sure to stick his tongue out at Michael before jumping up on the counter where he would be the most in the way. Michael, long used to his antics, swatted at Gavin’s leg out of habit more than anything as he kept making dinner.

“Should I make myself scarce tonight?” Gavin asked after a few minutes of just watching Michael try to expend his nervous energy. Michael didn’t get nervous about meeting people, Gavin knew this was important to him and Gavin didn’t want to scare this girl off by being himself.

Michael stilled, spoon he was holding in mid stir, the confusion on his face so plain he almost didn’t even have to say, “What the fuck are you talking about?”

Gavin opened his mouth, ready to repeat his question. “No,” Michael interrupted, finger in front of Gavin’s face to stop the words before they could come, “I heard you. I warned her about you because she’s going to meet you.”

There was a knock at the door that saved Gavin from any more emotion talk. He lifted himself up and off of their counter, doing his best to ignore the serious look that Michael was giving him. “Answer the door and then come back here,” Michael said leaving no room for confusion about what he meant.

It made Gavin feel better. It didn’t completely dispel those feelings of jealousy, of not being enough, but Gavin had been dealing with those since he had stopped again.

He opened the door to find a smiling blonde standing behind it. Her smile faltered for a second, eyes widening a bit in surprise, before she was able to school her expression back into a neutral smile. He didn’t miss the way her gaze darted from his face to the number on their door and back to his face.

“I’m looking for Michael? Are you his -?”

Gavin tried not to bristle, he didn’t want to know how she was going to fill that gap not when he didn’t know what Michael said to warn her about him. “Gavin.”

He was surprised to see her smile warm. “His Gavin, right. So can I-?”

Gavin was starting to think Lindsay would never get a complete sentence out. “What the fuck is taking you so long?” Michael asked, “There’s food, stop interrogating Lindsay.”

Lindsay winked at him, smile twitching into a smirk for a second, before she said, “You spent so much time warning me about Gavin, he was just returning the favor.”

Michael looked surprised when he turned to look at Gavin, that surprise turning nervous at its edges when he saw Gavin’s grin like he was worried what Gavin had shared. Which had been nothing, and Gavin could say as much but, well, Michael did say he was an asshole.

Just as Michael had promised, Gavin did like Lindsay.  There was something about her that was impossible not to like, but that could be the way she made Michael’s face light up whenever he looked at her or she laughed at one of his jokes. She fit into the group that had for the longest time just been Michael and Gavin so well that he felt the irrational desire to keep her.

She could also hold her drinks, which was almost a requirement with their friends.

They had been drinking since they had finished eating, and Gavin was feeling more than drunk when he remembered why Lindsay had come over in the first place. “Didn’ you ‘ave an audition you were gonna practice for or summit?”

Lindsay laughed, an embarrassed sounding giggle that Drunk Gavin liked the sound of. “Would you believe I lied ‘bout that? T‘s before I found out you’re already bonded though. You two‘re cute.”

Gavin was draped across Michael so he could be closer to Lindsay as they spoke, he flushed at her words as Michael tightened his grip on Gavin’s hip. “You’re lovely, Lindsay.”

She looked sheepish, he could imagine her kicking at the ground if she had been standing up, and she wasn’t  _ really  _ looking at Gavin when she spoke. “Guess it was a little hopeful, only been stopped for like five years, there’re people that wait hundreds. How long’ve you been together anyway?”

Gavin was only staying upright now because of his grip on Michael and he leaned in even closer to Lindsay to say, “We’ve been together for ages, right boi.”

Michael agreed easily, “Yep, something’s wrong with us, what’d Ry call it?”

“Polyamory,” Gavin said, the word feeling weird and weighty in his drunk mouth, “but he didn’t say anything was wrong with it.”

Lindsay’s eyes were bright despite the alcohol, “So what,” she asked leaning in closer to the pair, their distance apart on the couch had been shrinking all night but now they were practically sharing the same breath, “are you like waiting for a third?”

Gavin felt like he was being drawn in even closer to her, could feel Michael leaning with him. Like magnets they were helpless to do anything but move closer now that they were in her field. “At least one more,” Gavin agreed.

“Any idea who it is,” she asked, they were almost sharing Michael’s lap at this point.

He was ready to answer, ready to say that they had no clue where to even begin looking, when the hand on Michael’s shoulder that was keeping him upright slipped. They both feel forward into Lindsay, if Gavin had the time to think he would be impressed that he had any room left to fall, Gavin actually falling and Michael following in a drunken attempt to catch him.

Gavin saved himself from tumbling onto the floor with a bracing hand on Lindsay’s thigh, Michael’s arms bracketed him, keeping him in place with a hand landing on Gavin’s and the other on Lindsay’s shoulder. 

There was an apology on his lips when Gavin felt that familiar ache of time creeping forward again. His breath caught in his throat as that first second of aging tipped over into the next. His head was swimming with the familiar but strange sensation, as he stared up at Lindsay who looked shocked and enraptured all at once. Gavin really only had one thought as he felt his stop end for the second time.

He was going to be sick.

Gavin easily rolled out of Michael’s grip before he emptied his stomach in the bin beside them.

Lindsay wrinkled her nose but said nothing, Michael was looking at her with a mix of fear and adoration as he asked, “You alright, Gavvy?”

“Top.”

“Does he do that a lot?” Lindsay asked.

“More often than he probably should,” Michael admitted, “he’s got a weird gag reflex, you get used to it.”

Gavin moaned as his stomach tried its best to settle. “Shut it you pleb.”

“You get used to the made up words too.”


	6. Chapter 6

Lindsay stayed the night that first night.

Mostly because she was piss drunk, but the three had found it hard to split apart once they had bonded.

She left in the morning, smile on her face and Gavin could feel him mirroring it even with his splitting headache. Michael had leaned in to drop a kiss goodbye on Lindsay’s cheek only to pout when the gesture was rebuffed, Gavin would have laughed at the look on his face if he weren’t so confused.

Lindsay smiled apologetically. “I know we’re bonded, but I’ve gotten used to the bachelor life,” she shrugged but took one of Gavin and Michael’s hands in hers, “not gonna have me moving in right away.”

It was hard to begrudge her that, Lindsay was the baby of the group and he couldn’t fault her for wanting her time to figure herself out. Gavin had left home and had years alone to make his own life before meeting Michael and now Lindsay. He may have been tired of spending all his time alone now that he had found his fated, but it wasn’t surprising that Lindsay would want some time for herself to do the same.

It was clear that she wasn’t like Michael, whose quiet romantic side had him ready to jump into committed life and who found it easy to connect with new people, but a little more like Gavin who was more worried about having something for himself. For Gavin that something had come to mean Michael, and he was sure it would soon also mean Lindsay.

Especially when Michael had that look in his eye like he’d just been presented a challenge.

“We’ll have to make a regular date so we can trick you into staying with us,” Michael said. If Michael wasn’t careful she would learn what he sounded like when he had a new challenge in front of him, he would never get away with anything ever again.

“If you two are still charming when I’m sober then you won’t have to trick me,” she said and, almost like an afterthought, kissed both their cheeks before hurrying off to the radio station.

Michael looked enraptured, Gavin felt the same.

There was a master plan to woo Lindsay that Michael put in place immediately after she left. Michael did all of the planning but easily had Gavin agreeing to go along with his plan whenever possible. It was going to be a disaster. Gavin just hoped Lindsay found it an endearing disaster.

Gavin had to hand it to Michael though, his boi wasn’t afraid to play the long game.

Not that Lindsay really needed courting. When the thought of being bonded to two people hadn’t scared her away Gavin was pretty sure that nothing would. But what she did want was a little time and to know that being part of their bonded trio didn’t mean she stopped being Lindsay. 

Michael’s goal was to slowly speed that up.

Gavin thought it was sweet. Lindsay had rolled her eyes and agreed when she came over for dinner after one of Michael’s more flashier attempts at speeding up her agreeing to join them.

“The flowers waiting for me in the morning are nice,” she said, “and the random dinner delivery has been amazing, but really?”

“Really, what?” Michael asked, mouth stuffed with food as he spoke and even then he couldn’t pull off the innocent look he was going for.

She sighed, “Really my doorstep looked like you bought every stuffed cat in the city.”

Lindsay wasn’t as far off as she might have thought. It had taken trips to a few stores to get what Michael had considered enough - and then there was talking Geoff into driving Gavin and all those animals over to Lindsay’s so he could put them there, that had been a step that had taken more effort than Gavin and Michael had planned.

“What’d you do with ‘em all,” Gavin asked. There had been so many that Gavin had called it ridiculous the entire time they were setting up Lindsay’s surprise, he wanted to be proved right.

“What else?” she said, “I kept my favorites and gave the rest to the kids that live in my building.”

Gavin was sure he looked smug, at least if Michael’s grumbling was anything to go on.

He hoped Lindsay was ready for the grand romantic gestures to get even grander. Michael was an escalator and he was relentless, things would only get more dramatic until Lindsay told him to stop or until she stayed with them for good.

She unofficially moved in six months after they were bonded. Lindsay stayed the night after their weekly dinner dates, and then spent the afternoon, and then the night, repeat. Her things made their way to his and Michael's, she was in their bed every night, but she kept her house for those days when she couldn't stand to be with them.

They’d been dancing around Lindsay moving in officially for nearly two years. Gavin had tried to pretend that it didn’t feel like she didn’t want to be with them every time she wasn’t lying beside them at the end of the night.

It was one of those nights that Gavin woke up with a start. That soul crushing feeling like his heart had stopped in his chest, that feeling like he was waiting for something he might never find. He left Michael in bed, they would have to talk about this at some point he thought but there was no reason to wake Michael up with bad news.

A knock at their door was the first thing to disturb the annoyed moping he and Michael had been doing most of the day. Gavin let the door swing open, ready to tell Geoff or Jack or whoever to piss off, but it was Lindsay who was standing behind the door.

He was confused. Lindsay had been given a key to their place by the end of their first week together, one she had had no problem using before. It didn’t take long to realize that was because she couldn’t, not when she had a suitcase in each hand.

There was a bone chilling moment where Gavin thought she had come to move out. Where he was sure that even though Lindsay had said the idea of polyamory wasn’t going to scare her away from her fated that this stop was just too much. Where the only thing he could think of was the worst.

“Pack a bag,” she said, dropping her things in the middle of their floor with a thud that only a full bag could make. “We’re getting the hell out of here.”

She looked between Michael and Gavin with a frightened determination that was so different and so similar to the look that Michael had on his face when he punched their wall after he’d realized what had happened. Frustration, resignation, and a need to move.

“You want to just leave?” Michael asked.

Lindsay nodded and he could see some of that leftover frenzied energy she’d packed her apartment up with that afternoon. “Yeah, pack up what you need and I got a storage place for the stuff you can’t.”

“And go where?”

“Who cares?” she said, “We’re stopped and we’re basically immortal, we could go everywhere.”

There was a moment of weighty silence. The quiet of three people who felt too young and too old to deal with this the way they should. Who were ready to act recklessly because the only other option was to just sit and be miserable and wait for someone that might never come.

“Where do you want to go?” Gavin asked.

Lindsay picked Australia. She claimed it was because of the opportunities she’d heard about for her and Michael, for Americans in their radio drama, but Gavin had a feeling it had as much to do with how far away it was.

A feeling he got from how upset she was that they had to stay in Texas longer than she wanted.

Lindsay had shown up ready to leave town, and it hadn’t taken much to get them to agree to leave with her. But Gavin had gotten good at leaving town, and well, he was a little worried that once Lindsay got over the shock of her first unplanned stop she would be upset that she’d fled from her first home. He was the one that suggested they wait a week, to make sure they had everything packed that they needed, to make sure that Lindsay still wanted to leave.

Michael was the practical one, the one who’d convinced Lindsay to stay even longer, who’d done the frenzied move before.

Gavin had gotten used to the leaving at a moment’s notice and didn’t realize what Michael would do so they could.

They stayed long enough to clean out their place, selling and storing what they needed to, and long enough for his and Lindsay’s characters to be written off their shows.

Michael wasn’t smug at  _ all _ when waiting got them references and auditions for the job Lindsay was looking at in Australia.

Australia was a hard to move to make.

Hard enough that Gavin found it easier to ignore the crawling feeling under his skin that reminded him they weren’t in the right place. He had Michael and Lindsay and the three of them were using the passing decades to figure out how they fit together as a group.

Michael and Lindsay got married in Australia. A small ceremony that was little more than whispered words between the two of them and pictures that Gavin took extra care in capturing. He was part of the ceremony too, wore his matching ring every day with pride and hyphenated his name happily, just not officially. Polyamory was rare enough or hidden enough that couldn’t do anything legally, couldn’t be married even if he was ready for it.

Marriage suited Michael though. With the way he looked at Lindsay like she hung the moon and his love of wildly romantic gestures. He said as much to her, on a quiet night where Lindsay was wrapped around him and as Michael snored on beside them, Gavin tried not to look offended when she flicked him in the ear and called him an idiot. He pretended he didn’t hear Lindsay when she told him Michael looked at him like Gavin had the answers of the universe on his tongue, he didn't know what there even was to say.

He wondered if they were waiting for someone with stars in their eyes.


	7. Chapter 7

The universe was good at drawing certain people together. 

Fated could feel that clawing draw toward each other sure, but like minded people seemed to be drawn together in much the same way. Gavin and Michael had both found Geoff on their own, Geoff had found the Founders, and now Lindsay had found people who could feel that crawling need to leave Australia as well.

Ashley had flocked to Lindsay as the only female actress in the time slot before the nightly news. They bonded over their upset at the lack of women in radio and their growing need to get out of Australia. Caiti she met through Ashley, when Caiti was on to get the word out about her new charity venture. When Lindsay volunteered herself, and Michael and Gavin, for anything Caiti might need for that charity it really cemented that friendship.

Ashley and Caiti were lovely and having the two of them around made it that much easier to justify heading back to Texas. They couldn’t just abandon their new friends when it was just as easy to follow them home.

The trip home was made worth it to see the joy on old and new friend’s faces as they bonded. Seeing Burnie bond with Ashley and Jack with Caiti was a hell of a way to start their time at home.

He wasn’t sure when Texas had become home instead of a place to stay for now, but it had. Gavin could see it in the way Michael’s shoulders relaxed like they hadn’t since they left and the way Lindsay’s smile seemed broader. 

It was good to be home.

So good that Gavin didn’t notice Geoff was gone. Not until he went to brag that he wouldn’t need Geoff to pull another job out of his arse for him - because he was getting back the job Geoff got him the last time but he wasn’t going to share that part. When Gavin asked around the Founders, trying to figure out where Geoff had gone he got the same reaction from all of them. Eyes rolled so hard that they must have been practicing and said, well Gus said it best, “Dumbass is chasing some girl he saw in a magazine, thinks he found his fucking fated. Gonna get himself cut open by that chainsaw.”

Gavin didn't understand all of that but knew better than to ask.

Things were relaxed at home in a way they weren't anywhere else. That gnawing feeling, that desire to leave, wasn't there at home and they could fall into an easy routine. Days were spent at work, they came home to whoever got off first starting dinner; nights were spent in front of the TV watching whatever Gavin had been working on with Burnie’s production company; and weekends spent watching Lindsay on stage. It was good, the habit positively domestic, and it was missing something.

Michael was in the kitchen and Lindsay was changing out of the clothes she'd worn to help get the theatre ready for their newest show. Which left Gavin alone in front of the TV giving them a running commentary of what they were missing.

“I'm not saying Brandon can't be brilliant, but he's a right mong to work with sometimes. Who even thinks to do that that way?”

“It worked though, didn't it,” Michael said.

Gavin scoffed, the only sound he could make that could show Michael what he thought about it working. “It’s as much to do with Kerry’s writing as it is whatever Brandon thought he was doing.”

“You sound mad that it worked,” Lindsay shouted from the bedroom.

“It’s cause Brandon told him how he should film something,” Michael answered.

Lindsay’s sounds of understanding were just loud enough to hear out on the couch. Gavin stayed quiet for as long as it took to find his name in the credits before jumping to a random channel with something playing on it. “I’m not minged that it worked, but I  _ am _ the expert. I know better than anyone there what to do with my camera.”

“Hear that, Linds, he’s not minged. He’s just pouting on our couch about a shoot from months ago.”

“Like you weren’t a right prick in that shoot too, you couldn’t-”

“Couldn’t what?” Michael shot back, it was clear in his voice that he just thought Gavin had forgotten his insult.

He hadn’t, well he had, but only because Gavin couldn’t take his eyes of the screen. A tiny redhead, not unlike the color of Lindsay’s hair now, was smiling and talking about something he couldn’t hear over the sound of his own heart in his chest. Gavin could feel his stomach swoop, climbing up into his throat only to drop again like one of those carnival rides Michael liked so much. That was her, that was the one they were missing.

“Who’s this her,” Lindsay asked flopping down on the couch with a tired huff and putting her head in his lap.

Gavin gestured to the screen but the girl was gone, “She was there!”

Michael came in the room now, done with everything but waiting for the dinner he started to cook, “Is Gav getting confused by the TV, I was wondering when his age was gonna start showing.”

Gavin reached back to give Michael a shove, he didn’t have time for Michael to be a jackass not when Gavin was certain he had just seen their missing fated. Without the surprise of seeing her for the first time, Gavin could focus, focus enough to see that he had landed on the public access channel. This girl of theirs was a local, they might be able to find her.

He was up and dialing the number without a thought and with no explanation. There wasn’t time, they had lived for forever but there was never enough time.

Someone picked up, Gavin could hear the intake of breath of someone on the line. “The redhead, the girl who was just on, who was she?”

He sounded full on mental as he shouted at a person who hadn’t even spoken to him yet. Shit, he didn’t even know if they had the answers he wanted.

“Sir, we can’t give out personal information to just anyone who calls,” a woman’s voice answered, sounding flustered at his rapid questioning.

“I’m with Rooster Teeth, Burnie Burns,” Gavin snapped, he felt like he was frothing at the mouth and the looks he was getting from Michael and Lindsay weren’t helping the feeling. Gavin forced himself to stop and take a deep breath, so he wouldn’t get hung up on by the one person he thought could answer him. “I, we think she’d be perfect for a project we’re working on. So I need a name and a way to get ahold of her.”

The girl at the other end of the line sighed, the long suffering sigh of a person in public service who had a series of questions thrown at them they weren’t sure if they were allowed to answer. “Sir, I can give you a name, but even if I could give you her contact information it wouldn’t do much good.”

“Why? What’s her name?”

Another sigh, “It’s Meg, and she has left her position as a hostess with us for another station in California. She didn’t leave any contact information.”

He didn’t bother to answer, the dial tone would be answer enough and frustration had made him rude. For the first time since he got to Texas he felt that twinging need to leave.

Michael and Lindsay were watching him with some concern. “What the hell was that about?” Michael asked, concern and worry for Gavin’s sanity had him sounding loud and accusatory.

“That was her,” Gavin said.

“That’s what you keep saying but what the fuck does that even mean, Gav, who’s her?”

“Meg, she’s Meg.”

“Gavin, who’s Meg,” Lindsay asked, soft and patient.

“She’s our missing fated, I’m sure of it,” he said, pleading with them to understand.

“Alright, where is she then,” Michael asked. Gavin could hear him trying to understand but that frustration was bleeding through.

“California.”

Michael groaned and it sounded like giving in. Lindsay grinned at the sound, they both knew what it meant. 

“When do we move?”


	8. Chapter 8

For the first time in his long life, Gavin wasn’t sure about this move.

Gavin was good at leaving, had bounced around the world without much of a thought for centuries. He moved without a care whenever he, or now when Michael or Lindsay, felt like it. Never had he moved cross country, or cross anything, to follow a certain person. A person he didn’t know, a person who might not be his fated at all.

How did Geoff do it.

He’d left home on nothing more than a gut feeling and a picture in the magazine.

It was making Gavin anxious just thinking about it.

Which made it almost comedic when Gavin ran into Geoff as he was getting the things they would need to move. Geoff was noticeably older but that hadn’t fixed the crack in his voice when he was startled.

Or his sense of humor when Gavin laughed at him for it.

“You look old,” Gavin said.

“And you look like the same twink bitch you did last time you left,” Geoff shot back.

“Well I’ve got a good skin care regimen.”

“And now that I’ve got more than I’ve ever needed to know about your sex life,” Geoff said, making a face and supplying helpful hand gestures on the chance that Gavin hadn’t figured out what Geoff was implying. “Why aren’t you aging? You’ve met your fated,  _ both  _ of them.”

“We are,” Gavin said, “just not a lot. We’ve stopped again.” 

After so many years it was obvious that it was true, but it still felt like admitting a secret every time it left his mouth.

“Again?” 

And that was why. That raised eyebrow and surprised voice, always strained as they try but can’t quite hold it back.

“Well we’ve stopped twice now.”

“So what’s wrong?” Geoff asked, blunt as ever.

“Thought that was obvious,” Gavin said, “we’re waiting on someone.”

“Just one,” he asked, with that raised eyebrow again.

“Could be, don’ really know.” Gavin said. He let that hang there for a second before he asked, “How do you know without meeting your fated that they’re the one you’re looking for?”

Geoff smiled absently, smitten at even the thought of his fated. “It’s a pull on your gut. A tugging feeling low in there.”

“Like you’re about to cum,” Gavin asked. His startled reaction to the thought that he might have been right about Meg, he wasn’t going to California for no reason. He might actually be blindly chasing after his fated, not just a stranger.

“No, not like you’re about to cum, dumbass, like you’ve just seen your fated for the first time.”

The look on his face must have been all Geoff needed to see. He laughed, warm and familial, “Go get’em champ, good thing you’ve got Michael and Lindsay to do the talking. Stop by before you leave, got something I’m pitching to Burnie that I think you three would want in on.”

Geoff’s idea involved video games and drinking, which fit nicely with an idea Burnie had for a miniseries he wanted to write. It wasn’t exactly a fight to convince Gavin, Michael, and Lindsay to agree to help if they were wanted before they headed across the country.

The only thing Gavin didn’t hate about working in California was getting to work in slow mo. It kept his work varied and Gavin’s experience from photography to the earliest video cameras made working with the new camera like second nature.

It gave him a reputation of being the man to go to.

Commercials, music videos, movies, TV, he got called to work them all; and with his talent for knowing where the action was going to be and the best exposure for each only grew his reputation. Action movies were his favorite. The slow mo was more interesting and it didn’t hurt that it usually meant working with Michael.

Even here, with a new place and new jobs, routine followed them. It was hard not to find routine with people who were so familiar, decades of living with Michael and Lindsay meant habits and routines followed them. They fit together and worked around each other harmoniously no matter where they were living and what they were doing.

Gavin didn’t think he could love anyone the way he did them, he hoped their missing fourth would prove the exception to that.

If he could ever find her.

He had been calling every news station he could as he tried to track her down. Nothing. She was no where, and the longer it took to find her the less sure Gavin was that he had had that feeling Geoff was talking about. It was hard, and made harder by the uncertainty coming from Michael and Lindsay.

“Seriously Gav, you don’t even know if that’s her real fucking name. Let alone if she’s really here.”

“But Michael, that was her,” Gavin said, the only thing he could ever say when Michael brought this up.

“That was her on the fucking show, but is it the her that you’re calling about, Gavin we don’t even know who the fuck she is.”

Lindsay did her best to stay on Gavin’s side, but it wasn’t hard to see that even she wasn’t sure. “It doesn’t hurt to call,” she said, “but Gav if you’re just chasing your tail looking for her maybe it just isn’t the right time to meet her yet.”

“There’s not a wrong time to find your fated, Lindsay, and we’re so damn close.”

“Are we?” Michael asked, “Gavin you’re chasing after someone  _ you  _ saw on public access. A girl we don’t even know if you really fucking saw.”

“We’d follow you anywhere, Gav,” Lindsay said quickly, clearly doing her best to be the good cop to Michael’s loud. “But it’s starting to seem like we don’t really need to be here.”

“We could go back to Austin,  _ really  _ work with Achievement Hunter like Geoff wants,” Michael said.

“We aren’t giving up,” Lindsay assured an attempt at preventing a new fight before it could break out. “It’s just trying again later. We could go through archives or something, try to figure out who this girl you’re so sure about is.”

“A tactical retreat,” Michael said his worry showing through even more now in his quiet voice and reassurances. “We go home, we regroup, we attack again when we aren’t so fucking shit at it.”

It was tempting, so tempting, when he could see the worry coming from the two of them and could feel a homesickness he hadn’t felt before. But Meg was there, somewhere, and he could feel that she was the one they were missing and looking for.

Gavin wasn’t going to give up, but he knew when to compromise, “Five years, then we give in, and go to Austin.”


	9. Chapter 9

It had seemed like such a long deadline but as five years started to creep closer, Gavin was becoming less confident he’d find Meg.

He’d called every news station in the state and she didn’t work at any of them, it had become habit to surf through the channels just looking for her face and that feeling he’d had once before. Nothing. And that hope he’d had in finding her was starting to wane, going back home was becoming a more appealing option with every day.

At home he could at least be a part of the community he was seeing his friends starting to grow,  a selfish part of him was hoping that being part of that and getting himself out there could draw Meg to them. They hadn’t had much luck doing it the other way round afterall. The less selfish part of him just wanted to take part in the content his friends were putting out. Watching it was fun, but Gavin could tell they were all itching to take part in more.

They had made it a ritual to catch up on RvB together. Watching every episode they’d missed thanks to hectic work schedules curled around someone’s laptop and around each other.

Gavin thought the domestic moment made the way his stomach swooped even more clear when a minimized window somehow had him staring at the girl he’d been looking for.

“Michael, there, click that video it’s her.” Gavin said, he was jabbing his finger at the screen as well as he could with Michael laying on top of him.

“Shut the fuck up, Gav, you’re talking over Grif.”

Lindsay sighed, a content sound as she settled in closer to Michael’s side. “I feel like I should be concerned about my husband’s massive boner for Geoff, don’t you Gav?”

Now it was Gavin’s turn to sigh, “But that’s her Michael in that video about nerd porn.”

He was impatient, had waited too long to find her to wait for Michael to do what he asked, and wrestled the laptop out of Michael’s hands to click on the video himself. If Gavin could move with Michael on top of him he would have been on the edge of his seat listening to the steady music that played the video in.

Gavin paused it as she smiled and introduced herself her name, Meg Turney, filling the lower third. Smug satisfaction filled Gavin’s entire being as he looked down at his two partners. “That’s her,” he said and for once it didn’t feel like a frantic plea for understanding.

“She is pretty,” Lindsay said fascination in her voice as she reached toward the computer screen only to stop when she noticed what she was doing.

“Alright,” Michael said, clearly ready to give in but stubbornly holding on to the last of his disbelief, “so we know who the fuck she really is now.”

“And where she's working full time,” Gavin added, Michael would probably get fed up with his wiggly self-satisfaction in a second but right now he was just too pleased to stop.

“And where she's working,” Michael repeated, “but even if their office is anywhere fucking near here, Gav what's your shitty plan to meet her.”

“It's not shitty, Michael, we'll just email her. ‘S all pretty straight forward now.”

“Email her? With what, Gavin, the only way we have to get ahold of her is their business address. And I'm  _ sure  _ that would go great. Cause the gorgeous news host doesn't get hundreds of emails and comments and fucking tweets from people who are sure they're her fated.” Michael was working himself up into a rant Gavin could tell, and he'd be fine to let Michael finish it out normally, if he weren't bringing up such good points.

“Dear Ms. Turney, I'm sure you get this sort of thing a lot cause, fuck, don't we all but after watching three, four, five,” Michael’s number jumped higher as Lindsay clicked from video to video as she saw Meg's face in the thumbnail, “of your videos we’re sure you're our fated. Oh, I said we didn't I well that's just crazy. Turns out there's fucking three of us, told you it was crazy, I can send you to a couple of real fucking swell websites explaining polyamory or we could just meet up and we can explain it in person if you'll give us an address.” Michael paused like he was listening to someone, Gavin hoped he was wrapping up and not working up to another rant. “No, you're gonna delete the email, you're gonna block the sender, you're going to file a restraining order.”

“That last one feels like a bit much for one letter,” Lindsay said watching with rapt attention as Meg fished questions out of a bowl to answer.

“Who the fuck cares, no one wants to meet the whackjob harassing them at work about being fated. At best she doesn’t respond, at worst who the fuck knows.”

Lindsay rolled her eyes looking more than annoyed with Michael, “How did you ever meet the two of us.” She paused as something on screen drew her attention back to the video and she made a soft, wounded sound, “She’s got  _ tattoos _ , tell me you don’t want to run your tongue over that one on her ribs.”

“I’ve got eyes, Linds, she’s fucking gorgeous but that doesn’t mean she-”

“Who’s that?” Gavin interrupted. Michael and Lindsay could go around in circles like this for hours and there was a man on screen that Gavin thought could be the solution to this argument, if Gavin could remember how he knew the guy.

Lindsay scrubbed back through the video to the introductions and, once Phil had introduced himself, Gavin had an idea of how to meet Meg that even Michael wouldn’t be able to find fault in.

He kicked his legs, flailing to get out from under Michael before landing on the ground with a thud that would have been painful if he weren't so focused on answers. Michael's muttering about squirmy assholes was familiar and easily tuned out and Gavin turned out all of his pockets before finally finding his phone.

“What the hell are you doing?” Michael asked.

“Burnie,” Gavin said waving his phone so Michael could see, he thought it was obvious.

“What does Burnie have to do with any of this?”

The phone was ringing in Gavin’s hand and Michael’s question took a backseat as he waited for Burnie to pick up.

“Or don’t answer,” Michael said.

Lindsay hushed him, drawing Michael’s attention back to another video that Meg was in just in time for Burnie’s answer. “What’s wrong? What’d Michael do that finally got him killed?”

“Why does somethin’ have to be wrong? And why’s Michael dead?”

“Michael’s what?” asked the man in question.

“Because he’s reckless and you never call anyone if you can avoid it.” Burnie said, the panicked fatherly concern disappearing out of his voice.

“No one’s dead, nothin’s wrong,” Gavin said.

“So what do you want, you  _ never  _ call anyone if you don’t have to.”

Gavin thought about denying it, he could pretend to be offended with the best of them, but the faster he could get this conversation over with the sooner they could meet Meg or work on a new plan to.

“DeFranco, you know him don’t you?”

A small chuckle from Burnie was just barely audible over the phone, “I do, and I know he’s near you. What do you want from him so I know how nice I should be when I ask him for a favor?”

“I want to meet him, er well, we want to meet one of his people.”

Another laugh, like Burnie couldn’t believe what Gavin was saying. “I think I’ve got something that’ll work. RvB is up for an award for best web series, DeFranco and his people are up for something they should be there. I was going to bring my girlfriend but since I owe you for introducing us in the first place, I guess you can be my plus one.”

“And you can introduce me to Meg,” Gavin asked feeling truly hopeful for the first time since they had moved out to California that they might get to meet their missing fated.

Burnie made a sound at the other end of the line, not quite a laugh but sounded amused. “Yeah, Gav, I think I can manage that.”

Michael and Lindsay had given up on their Meg marathon for the moment and were shamelessly listening to Gavin’s end of the call, their eyes bright with curiosity and hope. 

They looked painfully young in their stopped bodies.

“When’s the awards?” When would he finally be able to feel the slip of time moving past him again, be able to live the way they were meant to. Life didn’t feel like life unless you had to make decisions that mattered.

“I’ll meet you on Saturday, Gav, and wear something nice. Can’t have my plus one embarrassing me, especially if I’m showing you off.”


	10. Chapter 10

There were awards shows that were televised and then there were ones that weren’t.

The ones that weren’t, weren’t for a reason. They were long. They were boring. They were filled with people no one recognized. Gavin wasn’t sure that half these awards were real and he was pretty certain half the names being called as winners weren’t actual people. He fell in a bored sort of trance staring at the stage, only blinking out of it when Meg and the rest of SourceFed were awarded something - he wasn’t really paying attention, it was hard to when Meg looked so blindsided and happy. 

The rest of the show couldn’t really compare. Gavin zoned back out.

The parties after these awards shows, though, they were much more interesting. A room filled with loud music, strong drinks, and people used to performing for their cameras.

Gavin had a drink in his hand and was being led around the room by Burnie. Too distracted by the party going on around him to pay attention to where he was being taken, strobe lights pulsing above a dance floor filled with ageless content creators. Seeing people who had been alive for centuries grinding up against some who’d only been stopped for a few months, it was almost enough to distract him from Burnie’s final destination. Meg.

“She said they were at one of the back tables in her DM,” Burnie said.

Gavin was doing his best not to panic as the moment he was waiting for got closer and closer. He downed the last of the drink in his hand, hoping to find his courage at the bottom of the glass.

A bright voice called out over the pulsing bass of the music, “Burnie, over here.”

“Turney,” Burnie shouted back, a happy greeting as he let her pull him into a hug.

“It’s good to see you,” she said before catching sight of Gavin standing off to the side, “is this the guy?”

“Meg, this is Gavin he  _ really  _ wanted to meet you.” As Burnie’s elbow caught him in the side, Gavin could feel a warm blush spread across his face he just hoped the dim light of the club meant it wasn’t visible.

“Always good to meet a fan,” she said in the joking voice of a person who couldn’t believe they were considered famous in some circles.

Burnie grinned and gave Gavin a shove toward Meg disguised as a pat on the back. “Alright, my job’s done, I’ll see you kids in a bit. I’ve got some connections to build.” A serious look crossed his face for a second before he left, “Turney, make sure you find me before you leave. We’ve got some things to talk about while I’m in town.”

Meg nodded with that same seriousness before she turned back to Gavin, a heart stopping smile stretched across her face. “So,” the awkwardness of two people meeting for the first time shining through her words for a second, “do you want to sit, talk? Burnie didn’t really say why you wanted to meet.”

Meg half turned toward the table she’d been at before, only taking a step toward it after Gavin gave a startled nod. He snagged a shot from the tray of a passing server. A little more liquor to loosen his tongue, anything so he could actually get some words out to talk to Meg.

No one else was sitting at the round booth that Meg was in, though the top was covered with abandoned drinks. She slid into the middle, hugged by the curve of the booth, and looked at him expectantly as she gestured to the open space on either side of her.

It couldn’t be quiet, not with the number of people in the club and the music buzzing through it, but as far as they were from the dance floor it came close. Meg fiddled with the drink in front of her, no conversation coming, Gavin didn’t remember it being this awkward with Michael or Lindsay. Why hadn’t it been awkward with Michael and Lindsay.

“So, um,” she said, and Gavin knew there were only two questions that could follow that, there were only ever two questions that followed that awkward beginning, “what do you do? Shit, that sounds like industry speak, I mean do you like work with Burnie?”

“I’ve worked with him before, Burnie’s just a good friend, I do slow-mo.”

“Oh,” she said high and bright in sudden recognition, “you did that balloon video.”

Considering how viral that video went, Gavin knew he shouldn’t be surprised that she had seen the video of him messing around with Dan and a water balloon in slow-mo but that surprise was a happy, prickling feeling at the back of his neck anyway. “Yeah that’s me.”

“So,” and here came that second question that anyone ever asked, “why did you want to meet me?”

Not the question Gavin was expecting. Well, it was, in a way. There were two questions that anyone ever asked at events like these, or any time they met knew people: what do you do and have you met your fated. Meg had asked the first and the second Gavin thought she had just implied, unless he was imagining the hopeful look to her face.

Gavin couldn’t decide if the churning in his stomach was from nerves or being so close to Meg - or if one was just a symptom of the other. What was different when he had first met Michael and Lindsay? Gavin hadn’t been nervous when he’d met them. They had talked, and learning that they were fated had felt like finding an extension of himself, but he hadn’t had the time to think about them the way he had Meg.

They had talked and they’d touched and they’d known.

“Actually,” Gavin said, hands fidgeting on the top of the table, “we saw you hosting and wanted to meet you.”

“We? Oh, you and Burnie. He mentioned seeing some of my reel, didn’t realize he wasn’t the only one.”

They’d  _ touched _ and they’d known, of course, idiot.

Gavin fidgeted with his hands for another second before reaching out, with surprising steadiness, toward Meg’s, “No, not with Burnie. Cable access, and then SourceFed.”

His hand touched hers. Nothing.

Gavin hadn’t felt heartbreak before, not when he had only been with his fated; but what he was feeling now had to be it. 

He had been so sure.

“Oh,” Meg said, eyes down at his hand and back up at him. Her smile was still in place but there was something different about it now, he was sure. “Have you been bonded long?” She cringed at her own words, or maybe the panicky, devastated look Gavin had to have on his face, “That was fate-normative, you’re married?”

“It’s complicated,” he said.

He touched Michael’s hand and they bonded.

He touched Lindsay’s thigh and they bonded.

He touched Meg’s hand and nothing. He kept it there. Kept it there like it wasn’t his third time meeting his fated, like this time it might need time to work. The ring on his finger glinted there in the low light of the club like it was mocking him.

Nothing.

He was wrong. How long had they been chasing after Meg and Gavin was wrong. He’d been so sure it was her, sure that he’d felt that pull that Geoff had described. Not only was he wrong, he’d made Michael and Lindsay stay out here for nothing and he’d called in a favor from Burnie to meet her. And now he was staring at her like a bollocking idiot.

If it wasn’t heartbreak that he was feeling it was definitely embarrassment.

Meg was looking at him expectantly and Gavin realized that he’d missed whatever she had said.

“What?” he asked. 

Meg started to repeat whatever it was she had said earlier but Gavin still couldn’t concentrate on whatever it was she was saying. “I need - I’m - I need a drink,” Gavin announced in the middle of whatever she was saying. His focus was so set on getting away he forgot where he was at, standing up so quickly that it made the table rattle.

Gavin slipped out of their booth and into the crowd, sparing the bar nothing more than a guilty look before he left the club.

The cab out front was like a sign he was meant to leave.

Gavin fed the driver his address before letting silence surround him. It was easier to think now that he was out of the noise of the club. He could let his mind shift through good and bad ideas as he watched the city go by his window.

He would wait until he was home to tell Burnie he’d left. He’d say he got sick, leaky bum, something that wouldn’t bring a lot of questions or requests to come back. Michael and Lindsay would be harder. He would have to explain what had happened; or maybe he could just say it didn’t work, they would know what that meant they could put the two together themselves.

They could go back home.

Michael and Lindsay were already working with Achievement Hunter - as much as they could from California anyway. Gavin didn’t think they would mind moving sooner than the Gavin imposed date. They were all ready to go.

He wasn’t leaving with his tail between his legs. He wasn’t running back to Austin to lick his wounds. He was just - He was tired, ready to be home, and worn thin after chasing someone he’d been wrong about for so long. 

Gavin was tired of chasing, he’d found Michael and they’d found Lindsay all by trusting and following that feeling he was in the wrong place. It was someone else’s damn turn to do the following. Gavin was going home and he was ignoring that feeling he was in the wrong place.

They were fated it was time for destiny to do some of the work.


	11. Chapter 11

Gavin got a lot of messages from Burnie in the weeks to follow that he didn’t bother to respond to.

Two came in within an hour of him leaving the club.  _ Turney said you abandoned her?  _ Followed by  _ I told her you got sick, left out your leaky ass. You’re welcome. _

Then the next day:  _ She still wants to see you for some reason _ .

A few days later it was something similar:  _ Should I tell her you want to meet up with her? _

Then the day they were finally leaving, Burnie knew they were coming back to Austin as the head of the company but this was timing designed for guilt.  _ You should really meet with her before you leave. Take Michael and Lindsay with you. _

If it were possible Gavin ignored that one more than the rest, his friends liked to call him an asshole but Gavin wasn’t selfish enough to make Michael and Lindsay share his pain. They had taken Gavin telling them he was wrong in stride, upset but understanding - and later, when they were all less upset, he would get to hear the ‘I told you so’s - but Gavin could still see that disbelief that came from secondhand knowledge. They didn’t need to meet her and know for sure.

When they landed in the city Gavin had a message waiting for him:  _ That’s a no then, take her number and talk to her. I’m done sending messages you aren’t answering _

Two weeks after they’d gotten settled back in Austin, and during his first day back at work, he got one that read:  _ You’re a piece of shit.  _ Gavin wasn’t sure if that one was about Meg, it could have been anything really.

Then it was nothing, well not nothing, it was business as usual. Burnie would text him or email him when he needed him or to ask him if he was going to be on the podcast, but any mention of Meg just stopped.

It made Burnie’s request to,  _ Make sure you’re at the morning meeting tomorrow _ , all the stranger. With Michael and Lindsay gone, a weekend convention extended thanks to a cancelled flight, Gavin had planned on doing his editing from home since there weren’t any plans to record - what with Ryan at home sick with his mysterious fated and Jack with Caiti in Australia. But even with as lax as Rooster Teeth was with rules, Gavin couldn’t ignore an order from his boss.

But he might as well have.

Burnie wasn’t even there when the meeting started. Gavin and Geoff had slipped in right as the meeting had started and Matt didn’t give them more than a passing glance as they walked in, starting the meeting as usual. Gavin didn’t see Burnie anywhere and nothing Matt was saying had anything to do with Gavin.

If it wouldn’t get him called out in front of everyone, he’d text Burnie and ask why the hell he needed to be here.

And since Burnie had an excellent sense of timing he walked in right as Gavin was thinking that.

With Meg following right behind him.

“And here’s Burnie with our newest hire,” Matt said, “Meg will be working on The Know with Ashley.”

Meg waved and smiled at the small group of bored employees listening to the early morning meeting, but she was looking at Gavin when she raised an eyebrow and her smile quirked up into something else. If she was asking a question Gavin wasn’t able to decipher what it was.

“Now get the fuck back to work,” Burnie joked, “what the hell are we paying you for?”

The members of each department laughed as they went their separate ways. Gavin made a point of running off before Burnie could call his name. The feeling that Meg was watching him was as much in his head as the feeling he’d had that she was his fated he was sure.

Avoiding her was going to be hard now.

Keeping Michael and Lindsay away from her was going to be even harder. He would just have to do his best to keep them apart.

Which meant grabbing Lindsay by the arm as she was leaving the B-team office to grab lunch. Pulling her over so she was between him and Michael and keeping her distracted until he knew that The Know was recording.

Which meant telling Michael to sit back down before he could head to the kitchen. Insisting that he needed something too and could grab Michael’s red bull while he was up.

It meant volunteering to go get Ryan from where he was messing around with the computer hosting their minecraft server. Afterall, Lindsay was mid-edit and Michael still hadn’t gotten in the game.

It was a system that worked; and if Michael or Lindsay or anyone else wondered why Gavin was suddenly being helpful or treating for lunch they were afraid that asking him about it would make it stop. It was a system that also meant he only saw Burnie while they were working, so he wasn’t on his dick about talking to Meg. He didn’t get much more from Meg than looks: confused, questioning, and sometimes annoyed. Gavin thought it was a pretty good plan.

Which meant Michael had to fuck it up.

“I need a fucking drink before we record this,” Michael announced to the room at large as they all set up for what was going to be a long recording.

“I’ll get it Michael, boi,” Gavin said, up and out of his seat in a second.

“I can get my own fucking drink, Gavin, you aren’t even in the fucking game yet.” Michael shrugged off Gavin’s hand from his shoulder and walked toward the door.

“No really Michael, I have to piss I’m leaving anyway.” Gavin was insistent now his hands on Michael’s arm now, trying to gently pull him back into the room.

“Then I want you touching my drink even less.” Michael pulled his arm out of Gavin’s grip and took another step toward the door. Another step toward where Gavin knew Meg was sitting, because he’d overheard Ryan talking to her on his last diet coke run.

“Why don’t we just wait til after this recording,” Gavin suggested trying to get out in front of Michael to cut him off but only managing to get a hand on Michael’s shoulder and back around his wrist, “I’ll take you and Lindsay out to lunch.”

“Linds is in the booth all day and Geoff’s been a sneaky prick about what we’re recording so it’s gonna be a thousand fucking parts.” Michael said, pulling away from Gavin roughly this time.

Gavin latched onto him again, “But-”

“God damn it Gavin I need a fucking redbull get the hell away from me so I can go to the kitchen,” Michael snapped and shoved Gavin out of the way so he could take that last step into the kitchen.

Into the kitchen where Meg was sitting.

Michael stopped mouth still open and staring at Meg. She was standing up, caught in mid movement, and looking at Michael and Gavin with a look that Gavin couldn’t recognize. There was a glimmer of an emotion that Gavin thought he might be able to recognize if he could look a little longer, but once Gavin noticed it was there it was gone. A small, confused smile replaced it as Meg finished standing and waved to Michael before leaving the room.

“Gavin,” Michael said, voice slow and even measured like the rhythmic tick of a timer before a bomb was about to go off.

“Yeah, Michael, boi?” Gavin said, trying and he knew he was failing to keep his voice even and light.

“Was that who I think it was?”

“Guess that depends.”

“On what?” A slight uptick, the timer was moving faster now on a bomb Gavin was now pretty sure he wasn’t going to be able to diffuse.

“On who you think it was.”

A deep breath and a sigh, they were still standing in the doorway of the Achievement Hunter office. The timer of the bomb has gone black, and Gavin isn’t sure if it’s because he’s safe or because it’s about to explode.

“Gavin, I’m going to ask you two questions and if you aren’t honest I swear to god I’m taking Lindsay and we’re fucking leaving you.”

It was an empty threat but it was effective. “Of course, Michael.”

“Was that Meg? And when the fuck were you going to tell us that you never fucking talked to her?”

“I talked to her,” Gavin said, upset and defensive and hurt. He hadn't expected this conversation to go well, it was why he didn't want to have it, but he hadn't expected Michael to accuse him of lying. “Of course I talked to her, Michael.”

Gavin wasn’t one for emotional outbursts, the occasional exaggerated anguish for a let’s play or a happy squeaky laugh when he got to prank someone with Michael; but now, now he was close to tears. A desperate, stressed out feeling had a lump clawing its way up his throat and hot angry tears trying to make their way to his eyes. He felt ridiculous, upset over nothing, but this was a misunderstanding that he couldn’t stand.

A hand reached out to grab Gavin’s arm, soft and consoling, and he looked up to find Michael’s face had softened with a kind of understanding. “We’ll talk about this when Lindsay’s here,” he said and it was enough to make those threatening tears dry and the lump in his throat shrivel. Gavin hadn’t escaped that conversation but he’d delayed it and the look on Michael’s face said he had a lot to say when they had it.

“Will you two dicks quit jerking each other off and get back in here,” Geoff’s voice rang out and ruined whatever moment or crisis Gavin and Michael had been having. “This let’s play is gonna take long enough without us waiting on you.”

“Yeah we’re fucking coming,” Michael said.

Michael took another step toward the fridge to grab the redbull that had kicked all this off again; but as Gavin took a step in the opposite direction, back toward the office with Geoff, Michael’s hand tightened around his arm again. “You aren’t wiggling out of this conversation,” he warned, “we’re going to talk about this, and why I’m not mad that you were going to avoid Meg until we were the last four people on the fucking planet, later.”

Gavin nodded and made sure to look properly chastised as Michael let go of his arm. Later, he could handle later. He’d been dealing with 'later’s since he stepped off the boat that carried him to this continent and this 'later' was bringing with it answers that Gavin had possessed and not known and that Michael had pieced together.

Gavin just hoped one of those answers was to why Michael still said Meg’s name like she was who they were waiting for.


	12. Chapter 12

Michael had his phone in his hand during every break in recording they had.

It wasn’t hard to guess who he was talking to, or who he was talking about, but whenever they jumped back into the game Michael acted exactly the same. It’s not like Gavin wanted things to be tense or awkward during gameplay, that always led to a swell of well meaning commenters wanting to know what had happened - and worse the people who explained like they had a clue what was wrong - but it seemed better than him having to act normal as he watched Michael’s character bounce around his in Michael’s usual excitable and clingy way.

Cause everyone had their off days. 

They’ve had let’s plays where Jack and Geoff aren’t talking because of some stupid fight. It’d taken Ryan forever to get used to being on camera, on mic, whatever. There were a couple that Ray had fallen asleep during. Even he and Michael had their moments, times where Gavin would snap at Michael - or more often Michael would shout at Gavin - as tense moments from home bled over into work.

So it was weird.

It was weird that Michael could go from being seconds away from a complete meltdown to stage whispering to Gavin about sneaking Edgar out of Ryan’s house. Or whinging that he was lost and needed Gavin to find him. Or pretending to vom up steaks like a damn bird cause Gavin said he was going to starve to death. Or a thousand other things that Michael would do on a normal day.

Until Geoff shouts, “Let’s stop,” to mark the end of each part and everyone drops their on camera personas for just a second so they can piss or refill their drinks, cause then Michael is picking his phone back up and hardly looking at Gavin.

By the end of the day Gavin felt like one misstep from anyone could cause him to snap. It’s not like Michael was intentionally winding him up or playing on centuries old insecurities, but he was. So by the time Lindsay finally left the B-team office so they could go home Gavin was feeling frazzled and the way she was looking at him, like she was trying to decide how much of what Michael had told her was true, wasn’t helping the feeling.

The near silent ride home had him wondering if it would be hard to bail out of a moving car. He’d never tried it before, but it looked so easy in GTA.

He didn’t, because Gavin didn’t have that same reckless spirit that Michael had. The thought was there though, right beside the thought that he could just run away now that they’d gotten home. He probably wouldn’t do it, not with how pissed with him Michael’d been earlier and he didn’t really know what Lindsay thought about the whole situation. 

He’d been avoiding the situation for so long, it was probably time to sit and talk about it.

It was strange how being sat down on the sofa like this, with Michael and Lindsay standing in front of him, could make him feel like a child who was in trouble with their parents. They must have noticed the tension and sat down on either side of him, each taking one of his hands. The familiarity was comforting but Gavin couldn’t look at them just yet though, not if they were going to fight. He just looked at their hands in his.

“You’re a dumbass,” Michael said.

“But you’re our dumbass,” Lindsay added.

“So will you finally fucking sack up and tell us how you fucked things up with Meg so we can fix it.”

“I didn’t mess anything up,” Gavin said heatedly, all of his tension at being in this situation bleeding into his words even if he couldn’t quite meet their gaze, “I met with her and it didn’t work, so I left.”

Lindsay sighed, “You were right.”

Gavin looked up, he wasn’t that surprised to see Michael roll his eyes and the slightly annoyed but undoubtedly fond smile on his face. “Of course I was, I know you and Gav better than anyone and I know exactly what a shit Gav is.”

“Gavin’s also smarter than both of us and figured out it was Meg first,” she shook a sarcastic fist in the air, “damn my misguided faith.”

“Should have fucking known better, didn’t ask any fucking questions when he came back like some mopey bastard,” Michael griped.

“It’s not like it was hard to believe that a girl like that had already met their fated,” Lindsay shot back.

“I never said that,” Gavin said, not sure if he was being accused of something in the middle of Lindsay and Michael’s lighthearted bickering.

“No,” Michael said, “you just came home fucking sure that she wasn’t our fated anymore, so we fuckin’ assumed. Guess we should know what they say about that, cause I sure felt like an asshole when I saw her and she looked the exact same.”

“Least we know why Gav was being such a clingy prick for the last two weeks,” Lindsay said, “I still haven’t gotten to see her.”

“That’s what we get for thinking Gav had the balls to actually talk to her,” Michael said.

Gavin gaped offense pouring off every word when he said, “I bloody well did.”

Michael gave him that look, that ‘I’m certain everything coming out of your mouth right now is bullshit’ look, and had Gavin reconsidering what he said. “I did talk to her,” he repeated, cause it was true he had, “until I touched her and nothing happened. Something happened with both of you.” The last part was an unnecessary addition but it sounded like a plea for understanding to Gavin’s ears, they had to know he wouldn’t have done any of this if he hadn’t needed to.

Michael nodded like that was what he was waiting to hear, “Gav, for someone so smart you are so fucking stupid.”

Gavin pouted but took the backhanded compliment without a word. He probably deserved it for not saying anything sooner.

“Gav,” Michael said softly, as close to an apology as Gavin was going to get for any of the harsh words, “how did I meet Lindsay, you remember?”

“At the radio station,” Gavin answered sullenly, pouting for an entirely different reason now. Michael knew something, he’d obviously figured it out hours ago; and Lindsay’s silence said she knew whatever it was too, a message shared through their texts that had been driving Gavin crazy all day. It must be pretty important too, if Lindsay was able to stay quiet, she usually got so excited she spoiled the news.

“We ran into each other there,  _ ran into _ , Gav. I touched Lindsay five or six times just picking up her things and helping her off the fucking ground.”

“Then why,” Gavin asked, mind moving in jumps and leaps his mouth couldn’t keep up with. “You weren’t bonded when she came over?” He said it like a question but Gavin knew they weren’t, Michael had been just as surprised as Gavin and Lindsay had been when they’d bonded.

“It doesn’t work unless we’re all there, Gavin,” Lindsay said.

“Thought you knew that,” Michael said, “otherwise we would have come up with a damn plan before we sent you off.”

“How the hell was I supposed to know that?” Gavin asked, snapped really. He had been worried about fighting with Michael now that he finally knew about Meg, but the calm understanding he was getting felt patronising.

“How the hell do any of us know anything about this, Gavin,” Michael said, finally raising his voice as he dropped Gavin’s hand so he wave his as he spoke, “we guess, trust our instincts, we fucking-” He gaped and managed a couple stuttered half words but the rest of his sentence was obviously forgotten.

“Nobody knows what they’re doing, we might know less than most. You just keep moving until you figure something out or you find what you’re looking for and then it doesn’t matter so damn much that you don’t know anything,” Lindsay said.

“And now that we’ve figured out that you’re an emotionally constipated dumbass that doesn’t know how to have a conversation with a girl we practically stalked across the country, me and Lindsay can clean up your mess.”

“We’re gonna set you and Meg up,” Lindsay said giving his hand a squeeze in her excitement.

“Clean up, set up, what? What about you?” Gavin asked.

Her wink felt salacious, but that could be because he almost knew what Lindsay was going to say before she said, “Much like last night, I’ll come after you do.”

“We’ll meet Meg after you’ve sorted out your shit,” Michael said, “we just have to agree on how; and by that I obviously fucking mean make Lindsay realize how fucking stupid her idea is.”

Gavin flinched back as Lindsay jabbed a finger at Michael, “There’s nothing wrong with my idea, it’s worked in tropey fiction across genres for centuries.”

“So’s the makeover, but we’re not gonna take off our glasses and let down our hair so Meg can see we were beautiful all along,” Michael said.

Lindsay rolled her eyes, “Yeah cause they’re totally the same thing, you want to be Gavin’s Freddy Prinze Jr. and I want him to talk to a girl.”

“You wanted to lock them in the fucking supply closet!”

“It’s a work in progress,” she admitted, “but getting the two of them together is a good plan!”

Michael scoffed, “There is  _ no  _ good plan that involves trapping Gavin somewhere and making him talk.”

“We’re giving him a chance to talk to her.”

“We’d be giving him a chance to overthink everything he said and make everything fucking worse.”

“I’m right here,” Gavin reminded them.

“Can you argue that you’re a piece of shit that can’t talk to new people, cause the situation we’re in begs to differ.”

“I’m not a child, Michael, I can talk to a girl,” Gavin snapped.

“I know you can, boi, but I’ve also know you for forever. I know locking you in a closet isn’t gonna get us anything but a meeting with HR and lose use the last of Meg’s good will.”

“So what’s your plan then,” Lindsay asked. “All you’ve done today is shoot down my ideas.”

Michael shrugged, “I think we should take it slow-”

Lindsay snorted and covered her mouth to stop the sound before she said, “That’s a first for you.”

“I think we  _ should _ not that we  _ would _ , I don’t think any of could actually wait the days or weeks it would take to do it slow.”

“That doesn’t sound like a plan, Michael,” Gavin pointed out.

“I know, Gavin,” he said with a drawn out sigh.

They sat in silence as they each tried to think of a plan to win Meg over, ideas marked by open mouths and excited eyes and punctuated with a soft sigh and a resigned slump when they realized it wouldn’t work. Until Michael sat up with a start, latching onto Gavin’s arm like that would let him hang on to the idea. “You’re recording the podcast early tomorrow, right?”

Gavin nodded and a grin stretched across Michael’s face, “Who’s on the cast for that?”


	13. Chapter 13

“I think it’s about time to wrap up,” Gus said.

Burnie waved his hands in the air to stop Gus from ending the podcast, “Wait, wait before we do that I have something I want to talk about.” Gus sighed as Burnie gave him a grin that said this wouldn’t be short. “So we all know Gavin.”

Gavin groaned, not surprised but still annoyed that he hadn’t escaped the podcast without this being brought up, and Barbara giggled excitedly at the idea of making fun of him.

“Gavin as we know has been alive since we escaped from his oppressive country,” Burnie said for the audience.

“Piss off, you weren’t even alive when that was happening,” Gavin said.

“That makes my point even better,” Burnie said, “Gavin has been alive since before cars were even invented but still can’t drive.”

“I don’t need to,” Gavin reminded.

“And why don’t you need to?” Burnie asked, prompted.

“Oh!” Barb cried out, “Can I answer?”

“Go ahead Babs, why doesn’t Gavin need to drive?”

“Because he has Lindsay!”

Burnie snapped and pointed to Barb to indicate how right she was, “Yes, Lindsay got stuck with two man children and is pretty much doomed to spend the rest of her life driving Michael and Gavin around.”

“Michael can drive,” Gavin interrupted, if he couldn’t come to his own aid he could at least go to Michael’s.

“Letting the car drift downhill once or twice in the 20’s cause Geoff was too drunk to drive is not the same as being able to drive.”

“Alright get to the point then,” Gavin said, ready for this teasing to be over so they could end the podcast.

Burnie smirked, “Gus, Babs, did you get the same text I did from those two about Gavin?”

“The one that said I couldn’t give Gavin a ride home no matter how much he begged, yeah I got it,” Gus said, Barbara laughed and nodded to say she got a similar message.

“And the audience can’t see it,” Burnie said, “but Lindsay is not off camera waiting to take Gavin home.”

“What’d you do to piss Lindsay off?” Gus asked.

“I didn’t piss anyone off,” Gavin said, wondering how far Burnie and Gus were going to take this. Lindsay may not have been waiting off camera but Meg was, with her phone in her hand and a growing look of something on her face that he couldn’t quite make out through the lights on him.

“So it’s coincidence that Lindsay has her hands in just about every project we’ve got going right now, but she didn’t stay after running lines all afternoon?” Gus asked.

“Did you forget her birthday?” Barb asked.

Burnie laughed, “Or did the Joneses just think you were losing your twinkish figure so they’re making you walk home?”

Gavin made sure to keep his eye roll obvious enough that the camera would pick it up. “I haven’t changed since the 1930’s nothing’s wrong with my figure.” Gavin flinched when he realized what he said, thankful that they were pre-recording and not live. Someone in the audience would have picked that up, not that Gavin’s relationship with Michael and Lindsay was a secret but they didn’t share a lot either. He paused just long enough that they would be able to smoothly cut out his flub before it went up for the world to see, “I’m not walking anywhere.”

He got an almost imperceptible nod from Gus that said it would be gone when it went up on the site and YouTube. Burnie did his part by barreling on making sure that there was no reaction, nothing for the audience to notice as wrong. “Then who,” he started to raise his voice for the show of the argument but dropped it immediately when he noticed something off camera. “What was that Meg?”

Gavin could see her raise her phone as she started to speak again and Burnie held up a hand to stop her, “Gus is here, do we have the sidecar set up? No. Do we have time to set it up? Gus is glaring, never mind, go ahead Meg.”

Meg held her phone up again and as she spoke Burnie summarized for the audience. “Meg got a message from Lindsay, asking her to bring Gavin home and promised they would make it worth her while.” Burnie made sure to punctuate his story with an unnecessary amount of eyebrow waggling, that was a loose interpretation of what Meg had said and Gavin was pretty sure that wasn’t what Lindsay had sent.

“And that seems like a good reason to wrap up,” Gus said, before launching into his usual podcast wrap up speech.

Gavin stayed behind, doing his best not to look over at Meg as she waited patiently off stage for him. Gus didn’t even wait for Gavin to ask before he answered, “Patrick took down the time right before you flinched, it’ll be cut before they stream it on Monday. Be more careful next time, dumbass, don’t want to make that slip up when we’re live.”

Gavin nodded and took a steadying breath before walking toward Meg. 

He knew the plan, Michael and Lindsay had gotten him excited for the plan but the part of him that had spent the weeks of ignoring Meg’s requests to talk after that night in the bar, that part of him was scared shitless. Gavin would be alone with Meg the whole trip home, and he had a feeling she wasn’t going to want to wait to ask about what was happening.

Burnie’s hand on his elbow gave him another second to get ready for that long ride home. “If you, or Michael or Lindsay, want to talk about your,” Burnie trailed off for a second as he considered what he was going to say, “situation on purpose sometime the audience would love to hear about it. You might even help some people like you.”

He couldn’t help but look over at Meg, she was watching him, when she noticed Gavin looking back she smiled, soft and confused at the edges. “We’ll think about it.”

“It can be sponsor only or an addition to the normal podcast, whatever you want,” Burnie said in an obvious attempt to convince him. Gavin’s expression must have been enough to show he wasn’t getting far in that attempt, “Just think about it. Go on, get out of here and do whatever it is you’re doing with Meg.

She didn’t say anything when Gavin walked up to her, just gave her keys a jingly shake and went out to her car trusting Gavin would follow.

Once the car was started, that was another story.

“Have you really been alive as long as Burnie said?” she asked.

“Little bit longer,” Gavin said, relieved that she was asking him about time and not the harder topics, “I was stopped ‘fore the war.”

She laughed a little bit at that, “Before the war, y’know you’ve been alive for all the ones people usually talk about someone might ask you to be more specific.”

Now it was Gavin’s turn to laugh, it was small but some of the tension bled from his shoulders. “You knew the one I meant, your little revolution.”

That set Meg off, a giggle that she couldn’t get under control until she was gasping for breath. “Sorry, wow, I can’t believe that English loyalty survived two centuries. I wasn’t even alive then, it wasn’t my little anything.” That seemed to remind her of something, Gavin watched as Meg stilled and her hands tightened their grip on the steering wheel for a second, a sure sign that the lighthearted joking they’d been doing for most of the short car ride home was about to give way to something more serious. “If you’ve been alive for that long, what happened in 1930?”

Looking out the window Gavin could tell they were almost home, he’d almost escaped having to have the difficult conversation on his own. Michael was right he was kind of a piece of shit, but this would be so much easier if he had Michael and Lindsay beside him.

“Turned twenty, stopped again.” That wasn’t everything that happened, but it was what mattered, what he’d admitted to in his comment on the podcast.

“Oh,” Meg said in that soft, taken aback way of someone worried they’d upset the grieving or opened an old wound. “Is that-?”

Gavin could almost hear the end of that question she left hanging. Is that what’s up with the ring? Is that why you ran? Is that why it’s complicated?

Gavin just shrugged.

What could he say to that really? That’s why it was complicated, Meg had already guessed. He was sure she had  _ thought _ she’d figured it out, but as they were getting closer to their destination he didn’t really have the time to really explain. Too busy directing Meg to a house she’d never been to for him to be able to focus on having a conversation like the one they were about to have.

It was complicated, and they were pulling the drive already. Michael and Lindsay were waiting for them in the doorway - unable to wait for Meg and Gavin to even leave the car - the lights from the house keeping whatever expressions were on their faces in shadow. Meg just stopped the car and got out, greeting Michael and Lindsay like old friends instead of people she was meeting for the first time. Michael put a hand on his shoulder, jerking Gavin into his side for a second before he pulled them both through the door. Gavin could feel the remaining tension ease from his chest.

It was complicated, but they would figure it out together.


	14. Epilogue

Not being able to sleep was a familiar feeling for Gavin. A hectic travel schedule had left him him tossing and turning thanks to jet lag many a night.

But now laying in the oversized bed the gents had helped Michael put together, in the soft early morning light, sleep was evading him for a different reason.

It was easier to appreciate the silence of the morning as he watched the steady rise and fall of Meg’s chest as she slept. To let the warm feeling bloom in his chest at the protective curl of Michael's arm around her waist as he hid his face between her shoulders, shielding himself from the light that was slowly filling the room. He startled when he looked down at his side where Lindsay was laying - one arm being held in Meg's grip as brown and blonde hair tangled together on the pillow they seemed to be sharing as the other held Gavin’s hand - and saw her looking up at him, watching him like he’d been watching them.

"You're freaking out," she said softly. It wasn't a question, Lindsay always seemed to know when something was bothering him.

"'M not," he said, because even though it felt like there were times that Lindsay could read him like a book he couldn't help but be contrary.

She glared at him, an impressive feat at the current hour. "I know what today is," she said, "and I know why you're nervous, but don't lie to me about it."

"I'm not nervous, just can't sleep, what's your excuse."

"Gavin, it's been two years."

"Has it?" Gavin asked. Maybe if he just pretended he didn't know what she was talking about Lindsay would just roll over and go back to sleep. Gavin could get out of their oversized bed and pretend like this wasn't a day he'd been thinking and worrying about for the last week - the last month, the last year - and he could leave his sleeping bondmates where they were.

Lindsay looked back at him, unimpressed by his attempts at evading, "You know it has, c'mon Gav, think back I know you remember how it felt that night. There's nothing for you to be worried about.”

He did remember. If Gavin had a list of the most stressful moments of his life then that night would have been near the top.

Even Michael's arm around his waist hadn't been enough to completely ease Gavin's nerves that night. His heart had felt like it was about to leap from his chest when Meg had walked through the door and turned on the three of them and asked, "So which one of you is going to explain what the hell is going on?"

Gavin had done his best to swallow around the lump in his throat while Michael had rolled his eyes. "I told you he wouldn't fucking say anything," he had said, before he'd turned to Lindsay, "this is exactly what would have happened if we'd gone with your plan."

"Explanation," Meg had repeated.

Michael had been the one to explain what was happening. He was the one who had the most experience giving this speech. He had given it to Lindsay twice, drunkenly the first time and then the next morning when they had all been nursing their hangovers they had talked about it again. It had still been clear when he had explained to Meg that he had been going over this in his head for a while. There was a practiced smoothness to his words that Gavin had never attributed to Michael before. When he had finished his speech they had sat in silence as Meg had processed all the information that Michael had thrown at her.

"Guess that explains why it felt like my stop came so late," she had said.

Meg had smiled and, even though Gavin had thought he could still see some doubt in her eyes, she had said, "It did feel like there was a connection when we met the first time, it wouldn't hurt to try it again with everyone here this time."

The silence had felt deafening when Meg had let Lindsay take her hand, had let Michael place his hand on her shoulder, and Gavin had put his hand on her knee. The bond had hit him like a truck and Meg had been with them since. 

Meg had fit with them perfectly she was like their missing piece, Gavin said as much to Lindsay.

Lindsay shook her head, careful not to wake up Meg when she moved, "That's not the point, I'm making Gavin. What did it feel like?"

"It felt like bonding Lindsay. Same as with you, same as with Michael. It was like finding the part of us that was missing.”

Lindsay jabbed a finger into his side, her way of punishing him for saying something stupid without thinking like she wanted him to. "No, c'mon, you know better than that. You remember how I didn't move in with you and Michael right away?"

Gavin nodded, of course he did, he'd only spent hours wondering if it had been because Lindsay didn't actually want to be with them - and even more time tagging along with Michael as he tried to trick Lindsay into living in the chaos that was their house. "Do you remember why I didn't?"

That part was a little more difficult, that had been years ago and he'd been more worried about what he had thought was the heart of the issue. She sighed when she realized that he didn't have a clue. "Gavin, how long have you been thinking about your fated and how they were the person that was going to fix you? Your whole damn life, right, centuries. I can't blame you for it, it's like the way our whole world functions now, but you gotta know how toxic that is for you." Lindsay was on a roll now, quietly continuing her speech so she didn't wake up Meg and Michael. "I know I don't really have the room to talk about feeling wrong for stopping, since I stopped when we all think you're  _ supposed _ to. But there's nothing wrong with you."

"I know, Lindsay," he said, if she had a point it was lost on him.

"No you don't," she said, "you're freaked out because you're worried you're still not whole, like you're going to stop again today just like you did with Michael and just like you did with me."

"Am I not allowed to be afraid of that," he asked, his voice never went above a whisper but it had bite.

"You can be afraid of whatever you damn want, but you can't keep thinking about us like we're here to fill some missing piece in you that's not what your fated are for."

"Then what's the point of having a bloody fated at all then. What good is a soulmate if they aren't your other half?"

"That's the point, Gav," Lindsay said, she was clearly pleading with him to hear what she was trying to say. "There is no other half, cause you're already whole. Your fated isn't there to  _ complete _ you, they're there to  _ compliment _ you.”

Gavin wondered if he should say something but Lindsay wasn’t done. “You’re freaking out because, what? It didn’t feel complete when we bonded with Meg. That’s cause Michael isn’t your passion, Meg isn’t your courage, I’m not your whatever. This isn’t the Wizard of Oz, destiny isn’t handing out soulmates like some old man handing out organs.” Lindsay rolled closer to him and grabbed hold of his face, pulling him down so he was looking her in the eye. “You’re freaking out for no reason,” she said, slowly like if she did he might absorb the message she was trying share with him.

“Maybe you’re not freaking out for no reason,” Gavin countered.

She pulled him down lower, wiggling so she could get closer to his face, and pressed their foreheads together so he had to look her in the eye. They stopped moving when they heard a sleepy sigh from behind Lindsay, then the sounds of blankets shuffling as Meg rolled over to cuddle with Michael after Lindsay's moving disturbed her. It was reminder enough that they weren't alone, and Lindsay made her voice even softer as she said, "Think about it again, tell me it didn't feel different when you were with us and you closed that bond with Meg."

Gavin did what she said. He thought back to the four of them together, tried to ignore what that suffocating anxiety had felt like - and the tinges of bittersweet smugness he had already been able to feel at the thought of Michael being wrong and this not working - so he could remember what it had felt like for them all to be together. Meg had sat down on the couch, the sudden burst of information too much, and Lindsay had sat beside her and took a hand. Then Michael, with his arm still around Gavin, had come up and put his other hand on her shoulder. Leaving Gavin to finish the loop, it had come down to him to prove once and for all if Meg was really the one they had been waiting on, and he had place a hand on her knee with a feeling of finality settling in his gut.

Gavin knew what it felt like to start again, but seeing the breath punched from Meg as she felt it for the first time had been a new experience. The way she had looked like she couldn't believe this was finally happening, the way her eyes had shined with excitement and unshed tears. The grip of Michael's arm around his waist had tightened and had pulled Gavin even closer to his side and Lindsay had looked radiant with the smile stretched across her face.

And that feeling in Gavin's gut had only settled in further.

"Oh," Gavin said, barely more than an exhale but Lindsay was so close even if she couldn't hear it she could probably feel it against her face.

"It didn't feel like completion, it felt final," she said, proving once again that she could read Gavin's mind. "So are you done worrying that the universe is going to shank you in a dark alley, your stop isn't a punishment but you still don't have to worry about it happening again."

"Lindsay you're brilliant," Gavin said, he didn't have any other words to say how glad he was to have her, to have any of them really.

"Don't worry," she said, "I know." She kissed his nose before she let go of his face, neither of them moved very far apart but she wasn't holding him captive until he figured out the error of his ways anymore. The two of them sat in silence for a while, letting the light from outside slowly fill the room even more. It was early still, but Gavin knew even now that he wasn't worried that he wouldn't be getting back to sleep - Michael would be up soon, Meg would be asleep until well after the rest of them had gotten up, and Lindsay's small yawn said she would probably drift off again for at least a few minutes. She wiggled around again, careful not to shake the bed enough to wake the other two, and Gavin thought she was getting adjusted so she could prove him right until she said, "You know what today  _ is _ though?"

He wondered for a second if she'd been half-asleep through their last heart to heart. Gavin thought it was obvious that he knew what day it was. Lindsay continued, maybe it was obvious to her that he didn't, "Our anniversary."

"Yeah, Lindsay, I know."

"Well if you know then you should know that as the only person awake you're supposed to bring your sleeping bondmates breakfast in bed."

"What, you're awake too?"

"No I'm not," she said.

"Yes, you are," he said, letting himself get sucked into the pointless bickering.

"Nope," she said, giving the 'p' a loud pop before she gave him a challenging look. He wasn't sure what the look was supposed to mean until he felt the press of her constantly freezing toes under his leg. Gavin managed to suppress the yelp as she wiggled them under his calf and started to push him out of bed.

Her victory was quick as Gavin swung his legs away from her and off the bed, "Alright, alright, Christ."

If it were anyone but Lindsay he would have put up more of a fight, but her smirk of victory was enough that he almost didn’t mind getting pushed out of bed. Seeing her roll over to cuddle up with Meg and Michael again was enough to make him forget about his plan to make a mess of the kitchen while he was doing it - Michael would just end up cleaning the mess anyway, too much of a clean freak to let it sit until Lindsay would do it.

Making breakfast gave Gavin a chance to think anyway, to let his brain work in the way it needed to for this lesson Lindsay was trying to teach him to finally sink in. A stream of consciousness that moved too quickly for most to keep up with and had swept Gavin away more than once.

Gavin had spent a long time wondering what it would feel like to finally feel like he thought he was supposed to that he had missed the balance that the three of them brought. Things had worked when it was just Gavin and Michael. When Lindsay showed up it was like she sanded away some of the rough edges that were Michael and Gavin alone. Gavin had thought it was because she was filling the place meant for her, like a puzzle piece sliding into place, but now he thought it because Lindsay helped balance the two of them.

Then Meg came along.

She was smart and determined and was ready to give her all in the relationship once they cemented that bond.

No matter what they did or how they did it, when the four of them were together things were amazing. Dinners were spent talking and laughing long into the night, they’d been politely asked to leave more than one restaurant so the staff could clear the table. Nights at home were spent on the couch shouting at each other about videogames, there had been fights about Mario that only ended when the two fighting apologized in their own ways for being idiots. When they were together things just worked, even when they fought they worked it out.

It was good.

_ They _ were good.

Made Gavin feel like a right mong for worrying that they weren’t.

That’s why he had Lindsay and Michael and Meg. Gavin didn’t need someone to complete him, Lindsay had said it and it might take a while to get it to sink in completely, but he did need them. Someone who challenged him, loved him, tempered him.

Gavin had always been complete, but now he was finished.

**Author's Note:**

> You can follow me [here](http://formosusiniquis.tumblr.com/) for all the latest on my attempts at writing.


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